Interview with Artist Kara Hamilton | Tracey Neuls
This Christmas, we are going back to Tracey's roots and presenting a ‘Canadian Christmas’. A carefully curated selection of gifts, sourced from independent brands, different regions of Canada and completely exclusive, not sold anywhere else in the UK apart from Tracey Neuls London.
Canadian artist Kara Hamilton experiments with jewellery. Sold separately, the hand-crafted gold and silver knots she creates are both simple and timeless. Worn by Julianne Moore, Beyoncé and Tracey herself - a longtime fan and friend. Read on to find out about how different forms of art have informed her practice.
See a short film about Kara's art practice here.
Photo credit: Jenn Cranston
Where did these little knots come from? What’s their story?
The knots were a way to tie up loose ends… literally. They were leftover pieces of wire that I needed to find a use for.
Your approach to jewellery is quite unconventional. How did you decide to make these pieces independent and separate?
They are all different, so choosing your own mismatched pair seemed appropriate. Or you can wear one or five, it just didn't make sense for me to decide how they go together.
How does your art practice relate to your jewellery design?
Ornament is an important theme for me across the board. The paradox of covering while revealing… critical decoration.
What led you to become an artist or designer?
I studied architecture partly because my dad was an architect and I always thought of it as the perfect Renaissance education.
I never intended to practice architecture since I saw my dad's struggle with it, but I figured I could apply my concerns with the history/practice of design to art making.
If you were to imagine the best way to notice someone wearing your jewellery on the street, what would it be?
The first time I saw someone wearing my hand tied earring on the Brooklyn F train was pretty great. We were packed in during rush hour and I was about to yell at the woman next to me for continuously hitting me with her bag until I saw she was wearing the earring I tied myself, suddenly I felt connected to her.
Do the materials you use have a special significance to you? How do you pick them?
I use found material partly because it comes to me with its own story. Usually the material tells me what to do, then I have a real relationship with it.
How do you see the relation between jewellery and sculpture?
Jewelry and architecture have a much closer relationship, both addressing a series of social or structural problems relating to humans in space.
Sculpture is more of an observation and/or commentary on some of those ideas.
What do you think is the future of jewellery? How does it adapt to the evolving world?
Ornament is an inherent part of evolution.
I like what Beatriz Colomina says:
"Ornament both marks and expands the human. It is both a sign of the ability to invent and the very mechanism of invention"
No doubt 'jewelry' will continue change or evolve, but it will never cease to be a way in which we invent or communicate.
