Julie Blyfield is a South Australian artist renowned for her work inspired by collected botanical specimens and forms. Using the traditional metalsmithing techniques of chasing and repoussé, Blyfield creates intricately textured pieces, which capture the essence of the Australian natural landscape by way of its details, colours and textures. For Blyfield though, the landscape is an internal space as well as an external environment, one where family history, memory, personal collections and place become intertwined.
Julie's practice is firmly rooted in extensive research for each body of work she completes. The 19th century Australian experience is particularly rich soil. Museological botanical collections (Pressed Desert Plants, 2005), embroidery from a family archive (Traces of a Shared Memory, 2001), Victorian mourning jewellery (Mourn, 1993) and historic colonial ceramics (Twice Loved, 2013), all provide periods of immersive research, from which entirely original, articulate jewellery and objects emerge.
For me, making jewellery and objects is about the pleasure in making something from raw materials, the sight, the feel, the smell of each piece. And it's about the process of transformation from a concept into a three dimensional object.
Julie Blyfield