Intense colours and innovative processes using PVC

"All that glitters is not gold" is a well-known saying and one that is especially applicable to the work of Kath Inglis. Her collection of jewellery sparkles and glitters in the light like so many precious stones although in fact it is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Like so many contemporary artists working in jewellery, Inglis eschews the traditional materials of precious metals and expensive gemstones. The wish for a sustainable art practice and interest in recycling are some of the reasons artists follow this path. Others also see a challenge in making a work of art out of something that others regard as expendable. In a society where the handmade object is becoming rare, the concept of owning a unique work of art and the workmanship involved in its creation gives jewellery like that of Inglis its value.

Inglis was born in Darwin and studied in Adelaide at the School of Art, South Australian University. After graduation in 2000 she worked in a number of Adelaide studios including the Gray Street Workshop, JamFactory Metal Design Studio and Soda and Rhyme – the last a studio and gallery she established with Naomi Schwartz. She now works at "The Barn," a studio in the Adelaide Hills.

Inglis’s collection of jewellery at Bilk Gallery contains eminently wearable brooches, necklaces, bangles and earrings as well as small objects like mirrors and scissors. All these are created out of sheets of PVC. Inglis’s skill in cutting these sheets of PVC is remarkable for the meticulous precision of the lines and the patterns she hand carves into its surface. The artist dyes the sheets in beautiful clear rich colours of blues, greens, reds, ambers and yellows that glow with inner light. Sheets of PVC are sometimes fused together so that an additional richness of colour and light is revealed when the layers are cut through. This is apparent in some of the Spark Cuffs – the artist’s iconic bangles in varying widths that are cut with geometric linear patterns.

Included with two works - the Waterfall Necklace and the Heat Wave Necklace - are the sheets of PVC that these necklaces of blue cascading circles and yellow beads were fashioned from. The outline of the patterns left behind in the sheets of plastic tell an eloquent story of the work involved in cutting each plastic shape into myriad facets like sparkling gemstones.

In other neckpieces the PVC sheet is cut into crescent shapes or, in one instance, into a patterned shape based on a bottlebrush (Callistemon Pendant). These are richly multicoloured like the Horizon Neckpiece (inspired by sunsets at the artist’s home in the Adelaide Hills) and intricately carved in the stunning major work, the blue Freezing Neckpiece with its myriad carved surfaces like decorative icicles. The advantage PVC has over metal for these kinds of neckpieces is that it is light, flexible and warm against the skin.

Other necklaces in a different style are the Coloured Branches Neckpieces. These are irregular long oval shapes cut from one PVC sheet in different coloured lengths and scored through in linear stripes. The Coloured Branches bangles from this same series are in the same irregular shapes. Apart from the intensity of their colouring, they are characterised by their individually faceted angles and edges that the artist is beginning to explore. Other works include chunky Crop earrings like miniature abstract paintings in rich colours and a series of more intricate constructed and carved pendants, brooches and earrings inspired by the protea flower ( the Protea series) and looking not unlike small examples of stained glass.

The Scissors series - Embrace, Kiss and Marriage - and the three works from the Mirror series, I had not seen before.

Inglis has shown her considerable skills in these pieces that are larger (22 centimetres by eight centimetres) and more intricate objects than the jewellery. For the artist, scissors represent loving relationships with both halves of the scissors having to function together to operate. The artist’s decorative hand mirrors can be wall-mounted as "wall brooches”. The feminine Hydrangea Hand Mirror in delicate pinks, blues and mauve colourings looks not unlike a fantasy of spun Venetian glass.

This latest collection of Kath Inglis’s jewellery and objects at Bilk Gallery demonstrates her ability to imaginatively explore the possibilities of PVC plastic. There is a greater degree of colour intensity in the work due to the development of innovative processes of PVC lamination while new forms and objects suggest a fertile fund of creative ideas for the future.