New Nature: Seven Jewellers Reimagine the Natural World
Michelle Ong
In 2025, jewellery offers a subtle lens through which to reflect on the natural world. New Nature, curated by Carol Woolton at David Gill Gallery, presents seven contemporary jewellers whose work reframes nature not as ornament, but as experience—intimate, fleeting, and profoundly personal.
Woolton, former jewellery editor at British Vogue and author, has assembled an exhibition that resists the predictable floral motifs of historical high jewellery. These are not Victorian orchids or exotic blooms; instead, each piece is a considered dialogue with nature, rooted in the particularities of place, memory, and perception—from the hedgerows of England to the gardens of Palm Beach, from the Eternal City to the forests of upstate New York.
Here, “new nature” emerges in subtle moments and quiet observations, rather than grand narratives. The exhibition’s seven jewellers share no uniform aesthetic; what unites them is an emotional intimacy with the natural world, expressed through materials, form, and texture.
Michelle Ong’s sculptural flowers and fruits, guided by the five phases of Chinese philosophy, hover with a playful elegance, while Maurizio Fioravanti’s Cage earrings marry centuries of Roman micro-mosaic craftsmanship with modern materials, producing pieces of delicate precision.
Fabio Salini’s Cage Earrings
Across continents, Maurizio Fioravanti carries the legacy of Roman micro-mosaic artistry into a contemporary register. His Cage earrings—delicate butterflies in porcelain wings set on zirconium—reveal a meticulous dialogue between centuries-old technique and modern materials, producing pieces that balance fragility and structural precision with exceptional lightness.
Material experimentation is equally central to the works of Fabio Salini, whose background in geology informs a tactile approach to unconventional mediums. Rock crystal, leather, shagreen, titanium, and carbon fibre become vehicles for translating colour, texture, and the rhythms of the Sicilian landscape into contemporary jewellery that is conceptual yet intimate. Meanwhile, Mish Tworkowski transforms the flora of his Palm Beach and upstate New York surroundings into sculptural forms: the Twig Neck Collar and Bark Cuff trace the grooves of bark and the irregularity of branches in gold and diamond, marrying botanical knowledge with quiet lyricism.
Twig Neck Collar by Mish Tworkowski
A structural sensibility underpins the work of Christopher Thompson Royds and Dina Kamal, whose architectural training informs their delicate, considered approach. Thompson Royds elevates ordinary hedgerow blooms into gold and bronze creations, preserving each petal and catkin with painstaking attention. Kamal, working in matt beige gold, investigates volume, proportion, and rhythm in forms such as her Fish-tail rings, producing jewellery that balances minimalism with a subtle, enduring emotional resonance.
Finally, Philippe Vourc’h introduces a fresh, emerging perspective. His Lobe collection captures fleeting moments of time and observation, translating them into jewels that feel suspended between delicacy and permanence, inviting contemplation rather than proclamation.
Across these seven perspectives, pattern, texture, and material recur—but above all, the exhibition celebrates attentive dialogue with nature. From delicate blooms to textured bark, each piece embodies observation and reverence, offering a meditation on the ephemeral and enduring alike.
New Nature, running 14 November–22 December 2025 at David Gill Gallery, , London
