Welcoming Spring with Lina Peterson Jewellery
A LOOK TOWARDS BRIGHTER THINGS.
Spring is found in the warmth of the sun, the heads of snowdrops dotting banks and the rich assembly of wild garlic. Its colours and sounds mark the change of seasons and offer a simple sense of reassurance and joy during these uncertain times. Lina Peterson’s jewellery encapsulates the budding of spring. Each piece a slice of lasting sunshine. Soft pastel shades are painted onto simple wooden petal-like shapes and blocks reminiscent of flowers in bloom.
Lina absorbs the contrasting patterns and colours found in individual petals; for instance tulips hold the subtle bleed of pink into white and meet contrasting blocks of yellow against red. Lina wants “to capture something of the softness of these flowers, but also the exuberance, the too muchness, the joyousness.” The abstract form of a petal is found repeatedly in Lina’s work forming a key component. Within this form Lina leaves “saw marks and imperfections on the wood, allowing colour and texture to take centre stage.”
The use of colour is central to Lina’s work. Her collections are titled; ‘Testing Colour’ and ‘Carved in Colour’. Each colour combination creates a different emotion. Lina has a painterly application of colour onto wood. She layers thick resins and opaque matte surfaces to form blocks of solid, bold colours which meet the tones of translucent shimmering watercolours. In all, these painted surfaces contrast with the rawness of the wood. Lina studies “how colour and material can come together to create a visual dialogue about process, form, and surface.” She investigates how creative processes can be made visible. The carved blocks have a childlike sense of joy and naivety - building blocks of colour that capture the pleasure of making.
Ideas are generated directly from discoveries made during the making process. Lina sets up working strategies for herself that “include an element of chance as this makes things exciting and unpredictable.” She therefore, might stumble upon, the surface of a cut material, a new colour or how something looked before it was completed, to be explored further. There is a constant dialogue between one piece of work and the next.
For the ‘Carved in Colour’ collection, wood is carved, painted and then carved again to reveal the unpainted wood below. The patterns become a mapping of the making process. A sense of rhythm and movement is created across the surface of each piece. Lina uses carving to make as she sees it as a tool that; “creates a tension between surface and material and between colour and the wood itself.”
Lina has expanded her collection to include wall based work which is an exploration into the application of colour onto wooden panels and the process of assembly. Some panels of wood are carved and painted. Other panels are painted exploring colour application techniques such as the bleeding found in watercolours, mixing paints and resin that are then cut up and assembled. She is also working on pieces that are constructed from a collection of wooden elements with a rough sawn surface, painted in block colours and then assembled. These are interpretations of drawings that in turn come from her embroidered work. The wall based work draws on her “aesthetic language and plays with materiality and colour.”
The new larger canvas seems to allow bolder mark making and brush work. There is a deeper sense of pattern and movement created with the paint. It’s fantastic to see Lina’s work on a larger scale. New compositions are created with wooden panels and blocks collaged together to form a landscape of pattern and colour. Lina has a fifteen year long working relationship with wood she holds knowledge over the processes she uses, but she always aims to surprise herself when making; “to generate results that feel intuitive and fresh.”
We asked Lina how she is continuing her practice during these difficult times. She has been able to set up her studio at home; “I pre-cut some wood before lockdown so am currently doing some painting and sketching and drawing. I’m also able to do textile work at the moment. Other creative projects are taking place while looking after my daughter - such as a theatre and a robot!”
As projects have been put on pause for many of us and the soundtrack to our lives muted, the opportunity to plan new projects arises. This Autumn we hope to showcase a large collection of Lina Peterson’s jewellery alongside her new range of wall pieces. We look forward to brighter times with our Lina Peterson jewellery showcase.