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©Gábor György Varga
©Gábor György Varga
©Gábor György Varga
©Gábor György Varga

Katalin Jermakov

Katalin Jermakov Jewellery maker
©Gábor György Varga

Creating connections

  • • Katalin started training at the age of 14
  • • She hosts international workshops
  • • Her jewellery is both contemporary and traditional

Katalin Jermakov received a degree in Metalwork and Metal Industrial Design from the University of Applied Arts (now MOME). Since 2005 she has been running a studio called MANA Jewelry Studio, where she designs both unique pieces of jewellery and series. Her work is rich in archaic symbols, strong colours, contrasting materials, and geometric forms. For her, jewellery making is like composing a piece of music, in which invisible connections are made between pieces of jewellery and their owners. One of her most important sources of inspiration are gimmel rings from the 17th century, which can be interpreted and worn in a contemporary context. Katalin received the Hungarian Design Award in 2001 and the Noémi Ferenczy Prize in 2009.

Read the full interview

Works

  • ©Gábor György Varga
  • ©Gábor György Varga
  • ©Gábor György Varga
  • ©Gábor György Varga
  • ©Gábor György Varga
Photo: ©Gábor György Varga
Ebony and silver striped bracelet

This striped bracelet is from a jewellery line that can connect people. The essence of this experiment was to create jewellery that belonged together in colour, shape and pattern, and were the two-part correspondences of a single idea. The attraction between the jewellery connected the wearers.

Length 85 cm
Width 65 cm
Height 10 cm

Photo: ©Gábor György Varga
Setting line 1,2,3

In her work, the artist often experiments with combining various materials and designing special settings. In traditional jewellery making, something particularly valuable is placed in the prominent area in the middle of the ring. In contrast, she often uses archaic, natural materials, such as bone, precious woods, and feathers. Her experiments predominantly focus on the method of fixing the inlays and other added elements: she not only uses various kinds of rivets, but also impales the elements the way we spear thing with a fork and thus the object turns into a spatial marquetry.

Length 6.8 cm
Width 3.2 cm
Height 1.5 cm
Length 3.5 cm
Width 3.5 cm
Height 3.8 cm
Length 7.5 cm
Width 3 cm
Height 1.5 cm

Photo: ©Gábor György Varga
Gimmel ring with polka dot feathers

The gimmel ring consists of two loops or links that can fit together. The area between the two fingers provides an opportunity to set materials that are not possible to incorporate into classic jewellery. The ring comes with several different inserts that are interchangeable. Combined application of opposing concepts, qualities and phenomena: natural and man-made rasters, feather and metal, black and white, solid and ethereal forms.

Length 3.5 cm
Width 10 cm
Height 0.8 cm

Photo: ©Gábor György Varga
Gimmel ring

The basic idea of this piece is to update the renaissance gimmel ring; several variations have been made on the given theme. The ‘in-between’ ring was created by cutting and inverting the circle shape of the traditional ring, and then attaching a pull-out insert. The ring comes with several inserts of different characters, colors and textures, from single-colour geometrical inserts through the different patterns to the feathered “diva”. By changing the inserts, the character of the jewel can be completely altered.

Length 3.5 cm
Width 11.5 cm
Height 0.8 cm

Photo: ©Gábor György Varga
Anamorphic Necklace

Katalin’s recent jewellery design is preoccupied with altering perspectives. These objects show seemingly impossible spatial effects that highlight a particular part of the body due to their unorthodox perspective. Although this necklace, for instance, features large hoops that appear to be perpendicular to the body, as a matter of fact, it is lens-shaped. Being worn each of its elements is unique and faces a different direction. Yet, the only highlighted element, which is made of silver, is turned in the opposite direction: inward (or towards the centre).

Length 6.5 cm

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