Artist: Julie Usel

Julie Usel is a London-based contemporary jeweller born in Geneva. She has just graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, with a Master in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery. She completed her BA (Hons) in jewellery at the University of Art and Design, Geneva, after having spent one year in a jewellery school in Florence; Le Arti Orafe. After graduation she launched a collection of laser-cut stainless steel rings called “Trace of Lace” with a prize from the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation (Rolex). In 2008 she won a Swiss Federal Design Grant with her “Generic Pearls” collection and came to London for a six-month artist residency. She exhibited in different galleries and museums including Talente (Munchen), the SO gallery (London and Switzerland), the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts of Lausanne (Switzerland), the Museum of Art and History (Geneva). She especially likes to experiment with different materials and to figure out how to manipulate them as there is no prior knowledge established. Since she entered the Royal College of Art she expresses her feeling through different mediums concerning the creative process and the role anxiety plays within it. Potato Rings, 2005. Carved, Dried and Dyed Potatoes. Goats Shits, Cotton Thread. Goats Shits, Silver Studs. Holy shit! (2008) Sometimes I want to be a housewife. Steak Necklace. Chicken Heart Necklace. Gut Feeling Polymer Clay, Leather. Pig Skin Dried Skin, nylon. Getting to the Gold - Meat: Beef Meat, 18kt Gold, Carved Pearl \ No Function / No Sense? (Exhibition at DepotBasel in August and September 2012.) At the same time as “Musterzimmer” Depot Basel shows also the exhibition “No Function – No Sense”. Expatriate swiss designers and artists designed objects without function and reflect thereby their self-understanding and deal among other issues with the (supposed?) boundaries between art and design, with function and context and with the relation between beauty and purpose. Three objects who dream to be jewellery. What are these ambiguous objects? Conceptually, visually and aesthetically, they are rings. They look like rings; they have the size and the preciousness of rings. Everything about them evokes impressions of jewellery, but they cannot be worn. They bear the concept of rings but do not have the function. Then what are they? Do we even need to categorize them? Maybe the function of these absurd little things is to frustrate us in a spirit of vengeance because they themselves are not what they would like to be… Untitled 1: Beef meat and zircon