Jewels for the Hall

Jewels for the Hall

An intervention by Ella Fearon-Low at Goldsmiths’ Hall 23rd September - 5th October 2025

Context:

Jewels for the Hall is an intervention comprised of a series of site-specific sculptural installations made for the Goldsmiths’ Hall during the two weeks of the annual Goldsmiths’ Fair. Each work is unique and responds to spaces, ideas or materials within the Hall.

LIST OF WORKS

1 - Pluvia Laetus (Joyful rain)

A shower of richly coloured decorated soft teardrop, seed and lozenge forms, hand carved in balsa wood and suspended above a mirror. I have always loved the archway that these pieces are displayed within – an internal arch of rich green marble, open from both sides. I wanted to create an immersive installation within it - with colour, form, reflection and light each playing their part. With more than one hundred and twenty individual forms hand carved, finished and painted – the joy of this work comes from the repetition of smaller elements to create an energy greater than its parts. The luxurious colour palette for this intervention is intended to both work with and against the rich dark tones of Goldsmiths’ Hall’s marble interior.

Materials: Hand caved balsa wood, silver, copper, paint, wax, ribbon, mirror

2 - Laetus Brooches

A series of 10 joyful large lightweight brooches made from Balsa and decorated in the same manner and colours as Pluvia Laetus.

Materials: Hand caved balsa wood, silver, paint, wax

3 – Pluvia Laetus samples.

Three drops from the Pluvia Laetus series for you to handle – please leave them as you found them. Thank you.  

Offering

A series of gilded decorative plaster offerings to Goldsmiths’ Hall. Each is cast in a fine hard casting plaster and covered in a rich coating of nearly pure gold. I had visions of the three wise men with their Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh making their offerings as I developed this work. Over several visits I found I wanted to make my ‘offerings’ to the sculptures that dwell inside the Hall, a sort of emblematic personhood within the architecture.  

Each offering is cast in a unique mould formed through mark making into fine white clay. Each imprint is made using objects that hold value for me – shells from a particular beach or a shard of antique ceramic from a Victorian bottle dump; gathered, washed, categorised, dated and displayed in my studio – waiting to find their role. A process of abstraction has occurred through making this work – celebrating fragments over that which is whole, and the weird worm casts and barnacles over the perfect shells.

Each group of offerings hold their own meaning and are presented on unique turned platters of charred polished wood. 

4 – Xenia

This offering is presented to the statue of Nestor and Telemachus, which was in turn a gift to the Goldsmiths’ Company from a former Prime Warden in the mid 20th Century.  Xenia is the ancient Greek custom of ‘ritualised friendship’ a social concept rooted in gift exchange and reciprocity much as would have occurred between Nestor and Telemachus when the latter visited in his quest to find Odysseus. I have made highly ornate offerings for this piece as would befit such an exchange. They are presented on a turned oak wood platter.

5 – The Four Seasons

This piece is offered to the statues of the four seasons that adorn the iconic stairwell that dominates the entrance to the Hall. Each season is represented by three small, gilded cake like objects that embody relevant imagery – the fresh clean buds of spring, the overwrought blooms of summer, the berries and decay of autumn and the icy sharp lines of winter. The 12 months are arranged on a circular turned cedar platter with the seasons repeating around the circle - gilded in different colours of gold to represent the related season.

6 – Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

The first of the offerings I made – this one sits in an arched alcove where the stairwell splits on the intermediate level. This piece is my offering to the Hall. Initially inspired by sandcastles and shell grottos I have made three decorative objects to honour the hall. All gilded in the same bright gold - familiar in such buildings - they are presented on a decorative turned platter of maple wood.

Materials: Fine casting plaster, high carat gold leaf in gold, rose gold and white gold, wood platters – oak for Xenia, cedar for The Four Seasons, maple for Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

7 – Samples for Offering

Early test pieces of gilded plaster made for Offering , and also the shells, ceramic and other items that became the tools for this project. You may handle these items with care – please leave them as you found them. Thank you.  

8- The Three Queens

A series of three sculptural works inspired by a brooch of the same name from my first collection, Rococo, in 2016. I wanted to make stacking sculptural forms that nodded to the human figure and yet were simultaneously abstract and decorative. These are the largest individual pieces in Jewels for the Hall and have a strong presence matching the strength and playful character of the Queen chess piece, much as the original brooch did.

Starting life as a three-metre board of maple and several large hunks of ash, they were made as part of a collaborative process with wood turning partnership Ash & Plumb. Our shared energy and conversation around design, making and finishing started at Collect 2022 where we showed alongside each other. These pieces were informed by an eclectic melange of influences that were worked out intuitively on the lathe from my many sketches and reams of visual research. They found their individual balance and character through the making process with nuanced judgements that affected the outcome by all three of us.

The finials and bases are painted, distressed and waxed, whilst the main bodies of the queens have been charred oiled and polished. Each queen is finished with a topper of baroque pearl and gold.

Materials: Green ash, dried maple, gold, baroque pearls, paint, wax

I will be giving a breakfast talk about the making of The Three Queens with Ash and Plumb at Goldsmiths Hall at 9.30am on Saturday 4th October - details to book here.

9 - The Dreamers

A series of carved Lucite brooches (and one pendant) using the verre églomisé technique to gild the back of the Lucite. Each piece has decorative dreamscapes drawn directly into the pure gold leaf. The Dreamers are mounted on distressed gilded discs using the same technique and presented under glass domes on dark red felt.

Materials: Oxidised silver, gold, gold leaf, steel pins

10 – Visitors book for Jewels for the Hall

Please feel free to write your comments, sign your name, draw something or share your contact information if you wish to join my mailing list. Many thanks.

Background to this intervention:

As an Artist Jeweller I create work, often brooches, that I consider to be like miniature sculptures. For Jewels for the Hall I have flipped that idea to make several sculptural installations that will act as ‘jewellery’ for the Hall during the two weeks of Goldsmiths’ Fair, decorating and adorning this imposing building with visual artworks. This project is like a physical poem for the Hall, both for what it is and what it represents. The home of a community; a status symbol; and a piece of history. It is a building that is steeped in making and materials, with its slabs of deeply veined marble, ornate gilded ceilings and wrought iron.

Contained within this body of work is an exploration of what it means to be precious and where the value lies in art and craft. Is it embodied in the materials themselves, the design process and ideas, or the hundreds of hours of skilled making?  Is the outcome of making art objects the material reality of the thing produced, the meaning the maker intended, or the experience and feeling it imparts to those experiencing it?

Over recent years I have begun to explore the idea of jewellery as sculpture through small-scale installations. Stacks of objects with a wearable element, tiny plinths, making the jewellery into artworks to be lived with and not tucked away in a box. Jewels for the Hall has allowed me to play with the scale of my offerings. These ‘jewels’ use a range of materials and processes and have expanded my practice into realms that have long been in my mind’s eye or developing behind the scenes in my studio. They channel my abiding love of materials, strong use of colour, decorative art forms, sculpture and immersive installation.

Material play

My passion for materials is writ large in these works, especially materials that are ‘soft’. This includes Lucite, a signature material in my work, as well as plaster, wood, silver and gold. Softness is about both the look and the feel of the material, as well how it is worked.  It is a visceral feeling, one which I have channelled through the making of these works.  

The politics of colour

I have come to realise that my confident, often playful use of colour, has become a small act of rebellion in a world that can be complex and filled with more darkness than it is sometimes possible to process. I don’t think I am alone in this. I noticed after Covid that many artists I admired had amped up their use of colour in a sort of joyful celebration of the freedom that followed and a refusal to be dragged back down when global tides are so volatile.

Shapes

My work is always informed by a myriad of historical references which come from a childhood bathed in culture as well as a lifelong love of art, architecture and objects. My visual research for Jewels for the Hall was wide ranging, taking in Indian rooftops, African trade beads, church windows, Roman artefacts, modern and post-modern sculpture and design as well as more decorative objects like 17th century jewellery and art deco glassware. As a lifelong collector I have gathered these references as an imaginary bank of lines, scales, forms, patterns and colours – a notepad from which I write my own visual story.

Sculptural forms and immersive installation

As a jeweller I am limited by scale and by the need to join work to the body. Jewels for the Hall is my first foray into making larger pieces and more immersive work. As a series of site-specific interventions, the building has become part of my canvas. Embedding these new works in the Hall’s grand spaces, nestling them amongst its architecture and honouring some of my favourite moments in this building has been both a challenge and a joy.

Thank yous

A massive thank you to Harriet Scott for supporting my vision for Jewels for the Hall, as well as to Barnaby Ash and Dru Plumb, and to Sheila Volmer and Rian Kanduth whose immense knowledge and skills enabled me to realise it. Finally to Marsha, Emi, Annette and my family for getting stuck into helping with anything and everything to bring this together.

What next

If you are interested in learning more about, or potentially showing or acquiring these works please get in touch - ella@ellafearonlow.co.uk   /   +44 (0)7824 826659