How did you start on your professional journey?
After graduating from university, a renowned Hungarian gallery, Erdész Gallery, organised a jewellery group exhibition, to which they also chose exhibitors based on recommendations from the university. That’s how I was selected as a young novice designer – in fact, it was my first strong impulse to take jewellery more seriously as a profession.
In what way is your craft inspired by the territory?
I am drawn towards classical European visual art. A well-formed object always catches my eye – be it from Greek Antiquity, Renaissance, Italy or the Low Countries, all the way to contemporary art. Classical European art – its traces and relics – surround me in Hungary and affect my art, but the art of the Far East inspires me hugely too.
Benedek Regős©Museum of Applied Arts Budapest
What kind of materials do you like to work with?
I like to combine different materials instead of working with only metal. Exotic, expensive and special materials such as ivory, ostrich eggs, corals and exotic woods have always been used in the history of jewellery-making and goldsmithing. Over time, they have been excluded from certain areas, but I like to use them still.
Is there something that people usually don’t know about your work?
Sometimes they don’t know that the materials used in my jewellery are almost never ready-made, found objects, but I myself make every piece of them. I carve the stone, wood, bone and pearl-shell with my own hands, that way I make it exactly the way I want.