Signs & Signals Brooches
Building on ideas developed in the Signs & Signals necklaces, again playing with the potential that jewellery has to enable wearers to express themselves. In this series I used one particular old sign created by my grandfather as a raw material: "EXIT". I experimented with the idea that I could take snippets and section from the original sign, so the message was obscured, but if I display the series of brooches in a particular way the message will again be revealed. Like the Signs & Signals necklaces, I literally and figuratively play with signs and signals. Signs are used to delineate between private and public spaces. Utilising this concept I delineate between the private (wearer) and the public (viewer) and by obscuring the original messages on the signs, and by making each piece reversible, there is space for multiple readings and further investigation of each object.
By using this unusual raw material, that is already embedded with potential meaning, I look to draw viewers into the story of the pieces: what the objects were, what they are now, and what they possibly could become. This is the strength the bespoke hand-made contemporary jewellery, the pieces created already have a story and a history of their own: how they were conceptualised and how they came into being. These pieces invite wearers and viewers to continue and build on that story.
Exhibited at Use POP Gallery, Brisbane, Australia 2018, Redlands Gallery, Cleveland Australia, 2019
Nellie Peoples, 2018, sterling silver, reclaim steel sign "EXIT", steel. Images: Faun Photography.
