Consequently, the team gathered for this series was comprised of a young 3D computer graphics designer, Alan Nguyen who, Nijland felt, understood the importance of maintaining the original graphic “handwriting” regardless of his own advanced technological bent and, to that end, found software capable of producing Nijland’s desired shapes and reliefs, while leaving the “handwriting” intact down to its faintest cross-hatching. Wings is a dialogue between traditional handcraftsmanship and current digital technology. Nijland, a master metalsmith, often enlists makers skilled in other mediums, whose technical prowess he requires to create the works. For example, Nijland used two etchings by 17 th century Flemish engraver Adriaan Collaert, from the collection of the Rijksmuseum, as models for the closed wings seen in several of his brooches and pendants the bilateral wings from an allegorical drawing by Michelangelo are subsumed in a number of necklaces and the central figure of an angel from “The Last Judgement,” a painting by Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, is the focus of a brooch, Mirrored Wing. For Wings he looked to medieval stained-glass windows from churches and cathedrals, as well as Renaissance and Baroque drawings and etchings, because he found these artists’ interpretations of wings to be particularly subtle and sensitive. Typically, Nijland draws inspiration from historical objects: architectural embellishments, sculptural motifs, domestic items, etc. The project was partially funded by the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, which acquired two works for its collection, along with developmental models displaying the incremental stages of each pieces’ technological evolution, that will serve as educational tools for visitors to the CODA-TechLAB. The culmination of several years of arduous research and experimentation, the magnificent jewelry in Wings truly soars. Gallery Loupe is honored to present Dutch artist Evert Nijland’s extraordinary new series, Wings.
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