Delphine Nardin
Shaped by a background in geology and archaeology, Delphine Nardin is a self-taught jeweler.
Her approach is similar to that of an artist. Each piece is unique and is born of her intuition and unexpected discoveries.
The materials are carriers of memory and energy: sea glass made beautiful through erosion, rough stones formed billions of years ago, and other vestiges gleaned from here and there.
To her obsession with materials responds her concern for contemporary form. With bold intent she creates subtle color relationships and echoes between proportions. Horizontals and verticals, straight lines and curves, and strength and fragility are all in constant dialogue with each other. Her technical prowess in their structuring brings the jewelry pieces their lightness and mobility. Underlying is a disregard for time, to draw beauty from simplicity and to grasp a trace of the intangible.
Delphine Nardin through her materials
"Gleaning has always been a vital and necessary resource. I get the materials from which I build my jewelry. Driftwood, sea glass, fragments of shells, I love these found objects, damaged industrial reminiscences, vestiges of the living, which bear the imprint of time. I combine sea glass with gold, I ennoble driftwood with a bronze patina, I transpose the vestiges of the living into silver imprints by the process of lost wax casting. By imagining mobile architectures, by playing with voids and solids, light, in a gesture that I want to be as economical as possible, it is a certain idea of beauty that I try to bring about."
Sea Glass
Necklace and ring, sea glass, stone pebble, 18K gold.
Imprints
Ring, shell imprint, sterling silver.
Drift wood
Cuff bracelet, drift wood, bronze patina, nut, sterling silver, 18k gold.