Saturday 9 December
11am| FREE
RSVP Appreciated
EXQUISITE CORPSE
What happens when three jewellers mind meld in one project? Hear from the creative forces behind Exquisite Corpse, Nelson-based jewellers Kay van Dyk, Joel Fitzwell and Katie Pascoe, as they discuss the project’s origins, inspirations, practice and collaborations. The works shown in Exquisite Corpse are a playfull blend of forms and styles, mixed together in surprisingly harmonic and dynamic collages.
JOEL FITZWELL
Joel Fitzwell is a goldsmith based in Whakatū Nelson. Working primarily with precious metals, Joel is a process-based maker who enjoys exploring traditional goldsmith techniques and often works within self-set parameters. In addition to his day job as a full-time manufacturing goldsmith at Jens Hansen Gold and Silversmiths, Joel creates contemporary jewellery alongside collaborators Kay van Dyk and Katie Pascoe as part of Project 21.
Joel completed a Bachelor of Art and Media at NMIT in 2012, majoring in contemporary jewellery and completed a trade certificate in Manufacturing Jewellery with JIRBNZ in 2018.
KAY VAN DYK
Kay van Dyk is a contemporary art jeweller and object maker from Whakatū Nelson. Her practice is informed by materiality, metaphor, and the agency of existing objects. Recurring themes of loss and longing are intercepted with playful experimental dialogues between the artist and what she finds at hand in her vast collection of ‘things’.
Kay has tutored jewellery and object making in the tertiary sector and taught Adult Community Education jewellery courses for 20 years. She is currently working on the fit out and preparation of the launch of The Bench | School for Jewellery, her Whakatū Nelson based teaching space and workshop. Other projects include Creative Direction of Nelson Jewellery Week 2025.
KATIE PASCOE
Katie Pascoe lives and works out of her studio in Whakatū Nelson where she exhibits both locally and nationally. Katie is a contemporary jeweller with an educational and work background in Visual Arts and Art History. Her work often explores social and collaborative practices between people and objects beginning with her graduate show Possession
After completing her Bachelor of Arts and Media in 2016 with excellence, Katie was accepted into the contemporary jewellery mentorship programme, The Handshake Project. Her mentor was London based sculptor Francis Upritchard. Recent projects include co-developing Nelson Jewellery Week, with a special interest in Buildings Need Jewellery project.