Julia Obermaier. Silent Reverie 

Julia Obermaier is a German jeweller working in Kempten, Bavaria, where she was born and raised. She has won numerous international jewellery competitions and was awarded the Kempten City Prize in 2024. Her artistic style has likely been influenced by her studies at the Idar-Oberstein School of Jewellery, which is renowned for its precious and semi-precious worked stones. Perhaps that is why many of its graduates boast excellent stone-cutting skills. And perhaps that is why Obermaier works mainly with stones in her art. However, her objects are conceptually quite far-removed from traditional jewellery, even if there is nothing radical about their form. And that is exactly how it should be. While formally well within the bounds of tradition, Obermaier’s work is gentle and intuitive; she never aspires to shock or overwhelm, instead aiming to touch upon something in the viewer or wearer’s memory, bringing out something forgotten. Take erasers – we all had them at school, but here they are different in material as well as function. After many years, what was once ordinary and banal, experiences a transformation, silently blowing our minds when we notice that the items are made of stone – that they are pieces of jewellery showcasing the artist’s virtuoso craftsmanship. In a similarly understated manner, the stones are grouped into sets, forming miniature structures. Translucent stone blocks lay on each other, catching the eye thanks to their hues and textures. Obermaier’s broaches are the result of an intuitive process, born not from logic but from impulses and sensations that take time and silence to recognise and visualise. The transparent stone broaches speak not in words, but in images; the stone rubbers erase the words as they form in our minds. In silence, intuition and imagination begin to unfold in forms unbeholden to words or stories. Shapes and colours, polished surfaces and textures are what we find at work here. In silence, thoughts and dreams unravel until the artist finds the right expression for them in stone.