Feaured Artist: Melinda Young

Contemporary jeweller Melinda Young's production work is an erray of graphic pieces. Using bold colours, crisp, distinct shapes and acrylic as a primary material - her pieces inherit a real tactile quality. Read on to discover her inspirations, influences and what's to come for Melinda...

What got your started on your artistic path?

I grew up in a creative, craft focussed family – both my parents are gifted craftspeople. It is not surprising that I have followed a creative path after a childhood spent drawing, painting and experimenting with all manner of crafts including macrame and leatherwork.

After several years at university focussing on art theory and painting, I was ultimately attracted to jewellery as a vehicle for expression as I felt that it had a great potential for conveying my conceptual ideas. So I dropped out of an almost completed degree and started again, switching my studies to jewellery and the rest is history...

What inspires you?

Architecture, plants, the landscape – wild and urban, people, materials, the act of making and increasingly traditional and tribal jewellery forms.

What is you favourite colour palette at the moment?

I love colour, but I tend to always work with only one colour on a piece – so my work is usually always monochromatic, even though there may be several colour stories within a body of work. Although I tend to be drawn more towards warm colours, a recent collection of exhibition work has used lots of green.

Tell us a bit about your studio space...

My studio is in the lovely big light filled attic of our house – my creative bubble.

If you could peek inside the studio of any artist, designer or craftsperson (alive or dead) who would it be?

I LOVE visiting other artists studios, I think as makers, we are always so curious about seeing how other people surround themselves when they work. This is such a hard question because there are so many I would love to visit... I often wonder what the studio of the late Dutch jeweller Onno Boekhoudt was like.

What piece of jewellery do you cherish the most?

I have many, many very special pieces of jewellery. Probably the piece I cherish the most is my letter 'M' Alphabet ring by New Zealand jeweller Warwick Freeman. It is special for a long list of personal reasons and was purchased on a golden day spent in Melbourne with great friends. Also the maker, Warwick Freeman, is one of my jewellery heroes and the marvellous story he told me about the inspiration for this work reminds me not to take things too seriously and that anything can be possible to a maker if you give yourself permission.

What is next for Mel Young?

Lots of exciting things!!! An exhibition at Fingers Gallery in Auckland with Lauren Simeoni called Unnatural Tendencies in October see: www.fingers.co.nz. I have work in a group show curated by Tricia Tang that opens in Hong Kong in November before touring to Sydney, Taipei & Bangkok. Over the coming months I will be visiting Canberra to conduct research and work on a large-scale piece for a national touring exhibition called Life in Your Hands which opens at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery next March. Then starting to develop on a new body of work for a solo exhibition... and a new range of production work is on the boil!