“From Beauty’s Edge: Adornment for the 21st Century” explores the contemporary adornment as interpreted by thirty of the world’s most innovative artists. The cutting edge of jewelry artists from Europe, Asia and the United States will be featured.

New York based art curator, Charon Kransen, returns to Patina after almost four years with a collection that reaches beyond conventional notions of jewelry. “This work is really about beauty, but not in a familiar sense. I am only interested in work that transmits something unusual, or unique. It must have a quality of personality that is often absent in more traditional jewelry….”

Kransen was born in the Netherlands and studied art in Israel, Germany and Norway. Now based in New York City, he is a respected art visionary with more than thirty years of international curating experience.  

The artists he represents work not only within the medium of jewelry, but other design fields, too. Among them are furniture and fashion designers, textile artists and product designers, as well as crafts persons creating decorative objects. Many are not “bench” jewelers, per se, but working artists with successful commercial careers. Describing the artists Kransen says, “These are people who use adornment as a means to bring out qualities in the wearer that cannot be evoked in any other way.”

The collection he brings to Patina represents a broad spectrum of materials and styles. Refinement, reduction and elegance are here, and so are the outrageous, the sculptural and the bold.  

From wool felt and rubber to platinum, polymers and high karat gold, this is jewelry defined by a level of value and experience that may have nothing to do with materials. It is innovative design at its best, challenging the viewer to expand notions of beauty and ornament.