Earrings in Dialogue: Sculpture at the Edge of the Face

Sissi Daniela Olivieri; Gaze, 2024; Silver and nano emeralds or rubellite earrings

For nearly two decades, Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery has positioned jewellery firmly in the realm of sculpture. Founded in London in 2009, the gallery invites internationally recognised visual artists—many known for large-scale or conceptual work—to translate their artistic language into wearable scale.

The result is jewellery that resists ornament. Limited-edition or unique, each piece is conceived as an autonomous artwork, realised in precious materials, and designed to hold its own in a serious art collection while remaining fully functional on the body.

The gallery’s latest exhibition, The First Encounter, turns to the earring—the jewel most immediately perceived in face-to-face exchange, resting beside the eyes and the voice. Here, the earring becomes a concentrated sculptural problem: a negotiation of balance, weight, movement, and proximity. Each pair is a site of encounter between artwork and face, artist and wearer, identity and form.

This focus brings together artists whose approaches range from experimental material play to formal rigour. Ron Arad (below right), for instance, treats jewellery as a structural problem: his 3D-printed polyamide and solid silicone pieces feel architectural and slightly dangerous, yet wear with unexpected lightness. Giampaolo Babetto works with gold, pigment, and enamel to create precise, tectonic forms.

Humberto and Fernando Campana; Lost Splendor, 2012-2013; White Gold, diamonds and Capim Dourado earrings; Unique and signed

Material transformation remains central to the Campana Brothers, whose sculptural instincts turn humble, overlooked materials into expressive, wearable forms, echoing their larger design practice. Similarly, Carol Bove brings the sensibility of her large-scale installations to the intimate scale of jewellery: her earrings distil repetition, form, and weight into pieces that feel both rigorous and intimate.

The exhibition also acknowledges historical and contemporary continuities in artist jewellery. Line Vautrin, working as early as the 1930s, transformed gilt bronze into playful, mythological riddles, anticipating later conceptual approaches.

Sophia Vari, who passed in 2023, referred to her work as sculptures-à-porter, translating her sculptural practice into materials from ebony to epoxy while preserving the sense of volume and gesture central to her larger work.

The First Encounter runs through March 27, 2026