Karin Findeis

Biography

Karin has been making jewellery since 1986 and has exhibited in Australia and internationally since 1988. She was born in Newcastle, a first-generation Australian of German heritage, and moved to Sydney to go to art school. Since then she has balanced her making with travelling and teaching. Her practice has been guided by interests in photography, language, material culture, collecting and museology. Her travels have included extended stays in Paris and Amsterdam, where she studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie with Onno Boekhoudt, Marion Herbst and Ruudt Peters. After 8 years in Amsterdam she returned to Sydney to complete her Masters degree under Margaret West at SCA, satisfying an interest in bringing together writing and making.

As well as making, Karin also curates and occasionally writes about jewellery. In 2010 she presented By Example, an exhibition of contemporary Australian jewellery commissioned by the Museum of Arts and Crafts Itami, Japan.

She has received support for her activities from organisations such as the Australia Council, the Australia China Council, Arts NSW, the Australia-Japan Foundation and Visions of Australia.

Since 1988 Karin has been a member of the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia-NSW and since 2007 has held the position of Chair. In 2006 she was the curator and coordinator of 'on Location: making stories', the 12th international conference of the Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group of Australia, held in Sydney.

In 2008 Karin was recently awarded her doctorate from the University of Western Sydney with the exhibition 'samples' at the Macleay Museum, and with a thesis entitled 'Locating Author Jewellery: a taxonomy of contemporary objects'.

Research

Karin is a producer of ‘bijoux’, jewellery that plays in the spaces between our experiences of the body and the world. She is interested in the way jewellery, and other personal objects, link us as individuals with the rest of the world. The intimacy and portability of jewellery play an important role in this connection. Her ideas explore the philosophical presence of jewellery through addressing the notions of transience, perception, memory and collecting. Many of these ideas have their origins in her early studies in photography, and more recently a major source of interest has been the Enlightenment, where the acquisition of knowledge lay in the objects that were collected. Within this process she thinks of her work as fragments and remnants; as visual narratives that have evolved from the origins of history, culture, and curious fascinations.

Significant Exhibitions

once more with love, Workshop Bilk, Canberra, 2012

Very Simple Proofs, studio 20/17, Sydney, 2012

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, artisan, Brisbane + National Tour 2011 – 2014

words and things, (with Margaret West), studio 20/17, Sydney, March 2011

By example, Museum of Arts & Crafts, Itami Japan, March 2010

Winter Brooches, studio 20/17, Sydney, May 2010

sampler, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, October 2009

samples: A Taxonomy of Objects, Macleay Museum, Sydney, April 2008

Once upon a time, SCA Gallery, Sydney and CAFA Gallery, Beijing, July and October 2007

soft bits, e.g.etal, Melbourne, October 2005

'(some)Place' in Place, Object Galleries, Sydney, April 2005

Souvenir, e.g.etal, Melbourne, 2004

Something to write home about …, Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney, Tweed River Regional Gallery, Murwullimbah and Cowra Regional Art Gallery, Cowra; Sir Hermann Black Gallery, Sydney, 2003/04

Metal Element VI, Quadrivium, Sydney, 2003

Publications

‘By example:’ Australian contemporary jewellery (editor)
USyd and Musuem of Arts & Crafts, Itami Japan, 2010,
ISBN 9780646527550

‘500 Plastic Jewelry Designs’ (contributor)
Lark Books, New York, 2009, ISBN 9781600593406

‘samples: & other collections’ (author) self-published, 2008, ISBN 9780646492339

‘on location: making stories’ (author/editor) JMGA-NSW Inc., 2007, ISBN 9780977506521

‘Hidden Cities: Beijing/Sydney’ (author/editor) USyd, 2007,
ISBN 9780975115177

‘Consuming the Object’, in Baines and Errey (eds), ‘Inherited Futures: Technologies to trap ideas’ (author/refereed paper), RMIT University Press, 2005, ISBN0864593694

‘We are what we eat’, in Burnett (ed.), 'Challenging Craft' (author/refereed paper) Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, 2004, ISBN 190108583x

‘Atopos & the consumable’, in Stair (ed.), 'The Body Politic' (author/chapter in conference proceedings), Crafts Council, London, 2000, ISBN 1870145992

Research Supervision

Karin Jakobsson, MFA, 'Time and Being'
Luke Arnold, MFA, 'Pretty Boy'

Awards and Grants

2009: Australian Japan Foundation, By Example (catalogue publication)
2009: University of Sydney, Research Support Grant, Awkward Objects Symposium
2008: Australia Council for the Arts, Presentation and Promotion, By Example: Australian Jewellery
2007: Australia China Council, Residency Project, Once upon a time … jewellery from Sydney and Beijing
2007: Australia China Council, Beijing
2006: Visions Australia, Department of Communications, Training and the Arts, Luminaries National Exhibition Tour
2005: Australian Postgraduate Award, UWS Doctoral Studies
2005: Australia Council for the Arts, New Work
2004: Arts NSW, Luminaries: new work by leading contemporary jewellers
2003: Australia Council for the Arts, Skills and Arts Development
Residency: Amsterdam/ St Petersburg

Professional Memberships

Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group of Australia – NSW Chair, 2007–13
Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group of Australia – NSW, Secretary, 2006–07

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