Eric Loubser at Southern Guild

WORDS Cheri Morris IMAGES courtesy of Alisa Knoblauch

Commercial jeweller Eric Loubser’s Gone, But Not Forgotten collection is on show as part of the Colour Field exhibition at Southern Guild in Cape Town.

Eric is the co-owner of Tinsel Gallery, a Johannesburg-based gallery that exhibits and sells pieces by local designers. As a commercial jeweller, Eric has had plenty of experience with reworking once-loved antique pieces. Wrapped in sentiments of loving years gone by, he aims to rework inherited objects in such a way that simultaneously respects their original craftsmanship and charges them with renewed vigour.

Gone, But Not Forgotten is a series of colourful bowls and jewellery pieces – earrings, brooches, rings, and necklaces – that form part of a larger collection that further explores sentimentality. The abstract bowls boast enigmatic hues of sapphire blue, deep-green and dusty gold and are coloured using an industrial technique called powder-coating that is not commonly used to add colour to jewellery.

The bowls were once decorative electro-plated silver trays that belonged to parents-of-parents. Through the use of smithing techniques, the plates were transformed into bowls and the resulting shard-like fragments were reborn into stunning wearable art. The bold neckpiece and dainty earrings include 9ct yellow gold wire and the exquisite brooches don pearls.

The Colour Field exhibition is on show until 12 September 2018 at Southern Guild in Cape Town’s Silo District. Find out more here.