SERGEY JIVETIN

The stately St. Michael's Castle (a/k/a Mikhailovsky Castle) in St. Petersburg, Russia is a study of beautiful architectural contrasts with Gothic, Italian Renaissance, and French Classicism motifs.

Russia is also the birthplace of featured jewelry designer Sergey Jivetin.

Jewelry is born from a myriad of influences and concepts; baby toys, planetary orbits, and dark emotions have inspired the designs of such artists as Hanna Hedman (Sweden), Yael Sonia (France), Franco Pianegonda (Italy), and Michael Berger (South Africa).

Jivetin explores the concept of time, stiff interactions within work environments, and body organs. Drawing from diverse studies in engineering, fashion jewelry, illustration, and product design, he creates wildly innovative items fashioned from the most unconventional materials I have seen so far.

The SUNY New Paltz and New Parsons School of Design graduate implements watch hands, human hair, fishing hooks, eggs, porcelain handles, and syringe needles in his creations. Although the designer incorporates 18-karat gold in some of his designs he relishes these undoubtedly strange and unusual materials. Nonetheless Jivetin renders jewelry that is, for the most part, weightless, ethereal, and visually stunning.

"I strive to create representations of paradoxical concepts like the sometimes sterile, cold interactions between humans in office environments," he explains. "By choosing jewelry's small scale and proximity to the body, I want the wearer to experience a concept in tangible, three-dimensional forms."

The contemporary jewelry is fascinating by virtue of Jivetin's choice of materials, and that he places these materials in a context so remote from what we commonly associate with jewelry. This jewelry is evocative and provocative triggering emotion that cause you to think, and ask questions.

Presently living in New York, Jivetin exhibits a decidedly bold artistic vision taking conceptual jewelry to a new level, in my mind anyway, while also challenging an industry that does not always cater to designers who follow non-traditional aesthetics.

"I search for contemporary developments in high technology and mechanization that are not adverse to the format of jewelry. I am interested in opening new ways of obtaining levels of interaction between beauty, physicality, and knowledge."

For more on Jivetin's powerful creative vision, please view the below video interview with the designer from Sofa Expo New York.


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Photo 1 (top right): Nitinol Ring from Tethered Volumes Collection
Photo 2 (bottom left): Earrings made from Watch Hands and Silver Posts