Jessie Bensimon (France)
JESSIE BENSIMON
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Designer biography:
A sculptor and engraver trained at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, at the Ottawa School of Art in Ottawa, and at the Ciabani and Saci workshops in Florence, Italy, Jessie Bensimon thought of jewellery, thinking of sculpture, volume, space, matter, body. Starting by modelling the earth on itself, she discovers that these pieces of raw earth, laid there like extensions of her body were jewels that waited for only a little treatment to take the forms of the dream. Once enamelled and partially covered in gold or platinum, they proved to be treasures. Then with ceramics and this own approach, she began to explore the metal first with a gesture of engraver in soft cut then by approaching gold or silver in their specificities. Flexibility, reactivity, light rendering, beautiful support for stone.
She then played in creating dialogues between raw minerals and cut gems or baroque pearls. She does not seek the perfection of the form, she is neither designer nor proper jeweler. It is the matter and its form that guide his gesture towards the jewel and not the idea that would lead him to conceive it. So there is always an adventure, uncertainties, surprises an uncontrolled part in every achievement. Its forms are always organic, they evolve around an imaginary spiral that carries them towards movement. The often rocky, rarely smooth surfaces are those of the sculpture where the imprint and fire of the hand are still perceptible. It does not seek to erase its sometimes awkward passage on matter that remains manhandled by fire, tools and the gesture of the hand.
She won the Prix de la Monnaie de Paris in 2003 for a series of historic medals. In 2020 Les Ateliers d'Art de France exibit her "Ecume ring" at the Jouy Canvas Museum. In 2022 she participated in an exhibition on the theme of slowness at the Gallery of the Baccarat Museum. She is invited to participate in the Venice Design Week in September and sees her collection "Félines" receive the label made in Paris" which is a guarantee of local and entirely artisanal manufacturing.
Collection concept:
She apprehends the jewel as the sculpture, each piece is unique or in very small series. Sculpted in wax or directly shaped by fire, the jewellery presented for this edition, rings, pendants, brooches, will be composed mainly of silver and bronze embellished with gold, set with fine stones and raw minerals. These materials all enter the organic process of creation. Their confrontation constitutes the essential of his approach. The intuitive apprehension of raw matter as offered to us by Nature and what we can do to transform it into poetic events is the common thread of his approach. The body, its support then makes it its talisman.
Jessie Bensimon ring La perle det le derviche 2021 sterling silver Tahiti pearl
Jessie Bensimon rings Félines 2022 bronze et gemmes 3,
Jessie Bensimon pendentif sterlingsilver gemme