Sometimes the most affecting gestures are very small and very quiet. Henriette Schuster creates jewellery and drawings that shy away from bold declarations and instead, wait quietly for close attention. Working with silver and thread, Henriette’s jewellery is arrestingly simple and direct: small elements, often in pairs, sit in delicate balance with one another, a subtle dance of interdependence and connection.

Familiar household objects like teacups, thimbles and brushes take on unexpected symbolism and tenderness as they hang, paired and companionate, on boldly coloured elastic. Tubes of silver are bent in simple and graphic forms, creating drawings on the body. Schuster’s vision is unobtrusive but always quietly compelling. As Susan Cummins writes, "she makes simple pieces with delicate domestic references or pure abstractions. There is nothing big or boisterous about her or her work. It is just humble, quiet poetry."
 
Heike Endter writes "'Objects in pairs' is a reoccuring theme of her work - two things that are similar and bound together, such as the two cups on a string, the two silver boxing gloves on a roughly linked chain, the two blackened hair brushes on a light thread, the two silver hands on a red cord, on which the fingers grasp, caught, perhaps, in desperate dependency. These pieces of jewellery are touching. They arouse the same, almost timid amazement of small votive offerings."

I find metaphors for my memories, experiences, observations, difficulties, hopes, and dreams. I’m interested in the relationship (co-existence) of two elements and the balance they strike, how they move and fit together.

Henriette Schuster