Wallace Chan at the Biennale 2012
Wallace Chan made his debut at the
26th Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris with his extraordinary
jewels made in a range of eye-catching materials crafted to
levels of astonishing and delicate detail. The collection is
called "The Path to Enlightenment - Art & Zen" and on show were
50 pieces worth 230 million euros.
"With each jewel I have a story to
tell," says Chan. "As a Chinese jewelry master, I hope to bring to
the 26th Biennale des Antiquaires the essence of oriental and
philosophy and Chinese culture. My jewelry pieces are created to
open up a profound dialogue between cultures."
Hong Kong native Wallace Chan began
his career carving precious stones. Showing an innate gift for this
craft he developed what he later called the "Wallace Cut" an
adaptation of the medieval intaglio and cameo carving techniques
that creates a realistic and three dimensional carving inside a
crystal with mulitple reflections. From this detailed and finely
calibrated work, the move into jewellery was a natural
progression.
But this is where comparisons with
traditional techniques and styles end as there is nothing
conventional or expected about Chan's work. His jewels looks like
nothing else and had me wondering what on earth I was looking at:
what are these gossamer fine layers of smokey crystal, where are
these extraordinary colours coming from and how can one stone
appear to hover inside another? Just how has he managed in hard
stone and cold metal to capture the frailty of a butterfly's wings
or the wispiness of a celestial cloud? How can he create such
extravagant, almost baroque jewels that are always original and
breath-taking?
With a Confucian-style long beard
and black tunic, Chan embodies the spirit of Asian philosophies and
religions in his work and aims to delight the eye as well as touch
the soul with his interpretations of nature. Chan tells me that he
uses real butterflies to recreate their exact anatomy and in one
brooch, he even encased the wings between layers of carved rock
crystal and mother of pearl allowing the powdery natural colour of
the insect's wings to glow through the transparent stone.
His ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary is the
mark of a true artist jeweller. As well having a genius talent for
carving and the most painstaking craftsmanship, he has also put in
time mastering materials such as ultra-light titanium to
create these jewels that are as delightful as Nature
itself.
Wallace unites invisibly the metal
'skeleton' of his works with the gemstone 'flesh' by inventing new
setting techniques. Not satisfied with conventional claws or
collets to hold stones he has developed what he calls the "the
diamond claw setting method" and the "inner mortise and tenon
setting method". The first one does away with metal claws and
actually uses diamonds and gems as the setting which sounds as
baffling as the result is sublime. The second method adopts the
Ming-style architecture mode of joining materials by cutting stones
to form a mortise and tenon joint, which believe me, is as complex
as it sounds. All you need to know is that it looks out of this
world and allows for seamless flows of form and a richness of
colour uninterrupted by metal.
Wallace Chan's jewels have captured
the imagination of jewellery collectors and experts around the
world. The fact that he was invited to show his jewels at the
Biennale des Antiquaires, the most prestigious fine jewellery show
on the globe, is testament to both Chan's artistry and the
organisers' knowledge and sound judgement. Chan is the first Asian
jeweller to show at the Biennale des Antiquaires.
