BAMBOO AND THE PARROT. BY SILVIA FURMANOVICH AND JACQUELINE OSTERMANN
Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look.
Marina Abramović, conceptual and performance artist
A rainy day, a storm at work, worldwide instability. At times, all we need is a few minutes’ proper, deep rest, to take our minds off the problems big and small, and to see the picture in a new light.
Jewelry by Silvia Furmanovich provides such an energy boost both through its sophisticated beauty and the earthy, fragile yet strong, tactile yet airy materials and ideas behind them.
Cheerful and joyous, the tiny bamboo groves, hand-painted by miniaturists in Udaipur, India, are set in 18k gold, with details added in diamond and tourmalines.
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.
Donna Tartt, from the novel "The Goldfinch"
Back in 2016, in a serendipitous discovery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Silvia Furmanovich was spellbound by the Rajput-era paintings, prompting her to explore India's artisanal heritage. Travels led her to Udaipur's master miniature painters, whose centuries-old techniques infuse her jewelry with history and color.
Using squirrel-hair brushes as fine as just one or two hairs, Indian artisans craft intricate, dreamlike scenes on scalloped wood and bone, employing mineral-based pigments made from colourful, blue and green gems such as lapis lazuli and malachite, along with yellow sulphur, black carbon, and red iron oxide. Silvia Furmanovich then transforms these canvases into ornate earrings, turning each into an amusing, wearable story, complemented by carefully selected gemstones that mirror the hues of the artisan's palette.
She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
Mark Twain, from the poem "The Whistling Elk"
In this rare encounter, true artistry entwines with its kindred spirit, where each masterpiece whispers to the other in the potent language of beauty.
The woman with the parrot by Jacqueline Ostermann and the bamboo earrings by Silvia Furmanovich are a bout of fresh and whimsy joy – a flirtatious interplay of lines and gems, and the mellow purr of happiness that refuses to be silenced by the passage of time.
