ARTISTS TALKING

A shortlist of six artists has been announced for the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize 2007. The £30,000 prize is awarded annually, but with a different focus each year within the applied arts field: jewellery, textiles, ceramics, glass, furniture and metal. This year’s focus is on Jewellery, and will be awarded “to the candidate who shows excellence, innovation and has made the most significant contribution to jewellery in the last six years.”

Shortlisted artists are Susan Cross, Nora Fok, Yoko Izawa, Grainne Morton, Adam Paxon and Mah Rana. Selection was made by Jacqueline Mina, winner of the 2000 Jerwood Applied Arts Prize: Jewellery; Christine Rew, Keeper of Applied Arts Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum; Paul Derrez, maker, collector and Director, Gallerie RA, Amsterdam; Carol Woolton, Vogue jewellery editor of and Geoffrey Munn, curator and writer. The winner will be announced on 25 June.

Mah Rana’s work (pictured) is an exploration of personal and collective histories. For a current project, she is researching her own ancestors. She plans to create a piece of jewellery contemporary to the period of a particular relation using one ounce of pure gold. She will then photograph herself wearing the piece before melting it down, picking another ancestor and starting the process again. Read more about Mah Rana in a-n Collections publication Collaborative relationships.

An exhibition of the shortlisted artists work will be shown at Jerwood Space, London from 6 June.