“The vivid flashes of colours were unbelievable and captivating and imprinted on my brain forever”. Melbourne’s hidden pearl, MGN culminates antique jewellery silhouettes and ancient jewellery practice to form sustainable, custom rarities.

What are some of your favourite words?
Sleep meditation, air particle, syrup

How did you first get into jewellery design?
My mum was a jewellery maker when I was a child and I got so much joy from making funny little earrings from ceramic beads and wire. I ended up getting consecutively fired from multiple office jobs, had a total downward spiral, lost all of my self-worth and moved cities without a plan. I had a chance encounter with a bead shop while wondering around aimlessly and it was so intensely inspiring, I decided to go to Tafe and study jewellery making properly.

You have a very distinct aesthetic in your designs that combines, in my opinion, tradition with modernity. For example, your use of pearls or square cuts with sculpted spikes that resemble digital shapes. Your pieces layer different eras of jewellery design and then look to the future. What are some of your key influences?

I’m very inspired by antique jewellery silhouettes, but I’m not a perfectionist and really love the imperfect aesthetic a lot of current designers explore. Modern jewellery techniques allow for jewellery to look more fluid, like the metal is melted around the stones. It means each piece has a unique shape and texture and can be special for each person who buys it. That’s something I loved about Christian Lacroix’s jewellery work, I love how he uses motifs of hearts and crosses and morphs them with bizarre shapes, fluid stone settings and intricate details. I also love Karl Fritsch who is a German jewellery designer. He paved the way for today’s sculptural art jewellery. I learned so much by trying to decode his seemingly impossible stone settings and testing materials the same way he does.

One of the things that makes your style so distinctive is the textured metal in your pieces. Can you tell us a bit about your working process? How did you come to realise your practice?

I use the lost wax technique which is a really ancient jewellery practice. Wax is cool because you work it with heat tools to melt it to liquid and form it to solid states of matter, which can create the impression of water. I love the way organic textures with a high polish reflect the light, it’s like looking at the ocean.

Morphing is also a trend in your shoots, with details like elongated nails. What inspires this?

The truth is I’m not much of a hand model and as a jewellery worker, your hands are more or less always covered in cuts and burns and dirt. I was always trying to think of ways to disguise my busted hands and nails. Also, shout out to ‘Nails by Juan’ to be honest.

You live in the creative capital of Australia. How do you find working in the Australian arts and fashion scene?

I have a really lovely group of friends who run baby jewellery brands too and we support each other, share things we learned and it’s nice to watch each other grow. I have also collaborated with plenty of really lovely stylists and designers, there’s so much young talent in Melbourne. There will always be little hierarchies and gatekeepers but it’s easy to ignore it and do things your own way. I am a stranger to “the scene” but I’ve built so many lovely friendships in the last year or two.

What are some of the biggest challenges you have had to overcome as an independent artist?

It’s very all-consuming which is in equal parts rewarding and overwhelming. I have chronic fatigue syndrome and my mental health is fragile, but suddenly my body and mind have become my entire livelihood, so I have to be very selective with my time and energy.

Australia is lucky to have a lot of natural resources. I think my childhood in Australia influenced my fascination with certain colours and texture. Do you think the natural landscapes have any influence over your work?

Definitely. I remember when I was little, my grandad gave me a box of rough gemstones all fossicked in Australia. I loved the colours, the way they felt in my hand, the way they reflected light, I’d look at them for hours and hold them right up to my eyes. Particularly a little vial of opal specimens! The vivid flashes of colours were unbelievable and captivating and imprinted on my brain forever, I love using opals in my work. If I ever stop doing jewellery I’ll become a gemologist/geomancer, Australia is so abundant.

If your portfolio of work had a soundtrack, what would it consist of?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjIPzyVlK60

Do you feel there are any voids in the jewellery world? What progressions would you
like to see in the jewellery scene in coming years?

Hmm I think jewellery is moving more and more towards sustainable materials which is great. I would like to see jewellery slow down a bit, Instagram has created an overload of trend cycles and I wonder ‘what is the logical conclusion of such an intense direction’. I wonder if you uploaded all of the jewellery trends to an AI, what would it spit out back at us? Lol