Melis Agabigum (USA)
MELIS AGABIGUM
Biography:
Melis Agabigum is an educator and studio artist from Michigan, USA. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Intermedia: Jewelry/Metals, Installation art, Sculpture, and Fibers, and received her BFA in Art & Design from the University of Michigan. She has taught Jewelry, Sculpture, and 3D Fabrication courses at the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Boise State University, and San Francisco State University. Currently, Melis is the area head of Jewelry & 3D Fabrication at Earlham College in Indiana.
Provoked by an interest in material fiction, Melis’ work examines loss, desire, and the notion of burden that individuals carry from their relationships. Her sculptures and jewelry objects explore the unseen tether of the physical and emotional weights that affect individuals in how they perceive their connection to others, their bodies, and space. Her work has been shown at the national and international level in the United States, Canada, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, England, Romania, and Lithuania. Melis is an active contributor to Art Jewelry Forum.
Collection Concept:
My works are driven by personal experience and the search for semblance in my connections to others, especially when those connections are broken or fragile. I move the enamel in my work into a place of fragility, calcification, and unsettlement.
Through over firing enamels to the point of black and blue oxidation, or under firing enamel till it is barely fused like a sugar. There is coldness through color and texture; sensual textile chaining draws from bodily experience. These dichotomies drive my concepts, which embrace the less than beautiful aspects of being: feelings of self doubt, lust, desire confusion, baggage, emotional distance, and vulnerability. Ultimately, I believe that this is where beauty manifests in a physical product. Beauty is where desire has become a sublimation of our soul’s perception of material, content, aesthetic, and connection.
Necklace, copper, 14K gold, enamel, waxed cotton, rubber
Necklace, copper, enamel, cotton cord, beeswax
Necklace, copper, 14K gold, enamel, waxed cotton, powder coat, silicone rubber
Necklace, copper, sterling silver, enamel, cotton cord, beeswax