Noor Fares
Noor’s creations are inspired by the talismanic and mystical qualities of jewellery and gems. Talismans contain spiritual significance that carry within them sacred geometry principles, which over time have been rooted into Vedic astrology. This has informed and influenced Noor’s approach to design with each piece centring around the stone, which later is transformed by the chosen narrative. Noor explores the power of ancient symbols and universal concepts translating these into a form of protective jewellery – where intricately cut and carved stones, minimally set within specific patterns echo a certain unique spirituality. Her desire is to create a piece of jewellery that becomes a part of you, that is infused with the sense of power to protect as well as to inspire you to create your own symbol and personal intention. Sacred symbolism and geometry are at the core of Noor’s practice along with the mysticism discovered from different cultures and the pursuit of exquisite craftsmanship. This ethos is present in each collection creating pieces that showcase a wide array of craftsmanship techniques ranging from hand carving, enamel, bespoke cut stones and nano ceramic plating.
Flavie Audi creates dazzling encounters with the sublime. In a dematerialised world where all is virtual and generic, her work seeks to define a new type of aesthetic and physical materiality. Her works translate the mechanism of life and light and resemble fragments of an ethereal landscape or geology. There are fragments of a utopian futuristic machine- made nature where gemmology aligns with geology. The work defines the invented term Cultural Geology: a science, which is linked to human processes; planetary bodies or substances grown or are made to create synthetic materials that exhibit properties and behaviours not usually found in nature. The forms and gestures found in the works capture a fleeting, living energy and suggest a certain ambiguity, hovering between digital screen and celestial body, investigating the points at which the natural and artificial worlds meet. During the making process, Audi embraces accidents and new discoveries, which then become an integral part of her work. Audi melts glass and precious metals together to create colour through the resulting chemical reactions. Often perceived as a natural material, glass is in fact a man-made element, a composite organic material. It both absorbs and reflects light, and exists on the border between absence and presence. Flavie’s glass works reflect this enigmatic quality. They are both scientific, as they are based on an understanding of how to manipulate glass, but are also
open to chance, as a product of an almost alchemical process. As the interface between the viewer and the virtual, glass is omnipresent in the digital world, signifying the tension between the two realms.
Noor Fares and Flavie Audi Collection
Flavie’s dazzling world infused with Noor’s esoteric geometry brings their jewellery collection to life. Both Flavie and Noor combine digital technology with traditional craftsmanship techniques, working with highly skilled artisans that results in a combination of their distinct practices. The ‘Superlunary’ collection fuses Flavie’s exploration into the symbiosis of the synthetic and the natural with Noor’s minimal aesthetic, creating pieces that echo lunar bodies transfixed in a seemingly eternal fluidity that hover between the realm of the real and the synthesised. The fluid geometry of the pieces are created through different processes: hand carved stone requiring high levels of craftsmanship inlaid with artificial and natural gems, synthetic resin that swallows natural stones to form ethereal clouds and silver with resin moulded by a 3D printer. These materials together form an ambiguous juxtaposition through which the lines between the two are blurred. This duality invites the viewer to consider the relative merits of each material. In an era of technological innovation that has seen the creation of flawless, synthetic diamonds, undetectable by man or machine, the work questions the values and authenticity inherent within these materials.
