I am Mariana Blanco, an emerging artist - passionate, perhaps obsessed, with contemporary jewellery.

My path to Jewellery like most artists was maybe a bit haphazard. I studied Fine Arts in Madrid, Spain and Nîmes, France, trained as a classical dancer when I was younger (and still feel the remnants of this in my body). However, it was not until my fifth year of university that I discovered my medium: jewellery. Ever since my life has been shaped by my intrigue and curiosity toward this practice. I see jewellery as the carrier of time’s identity with a unique relationship to the physicality of humanity. However now, like many others, I have questions about how the digital landscape and our uses of it could change that.

Thank you for being here, I sincerely hope you enjoy this experience.

Contact + @___laudanum___

I see this project as a ‘sketch’, as the beginning of future research and direction in my practice. I am interested in the process of mourning - because what is grief but the consistent perseverance of love? In regards to this line of questioning - I then wonder in this time: how do we physicalise the mourning in the digital age? And then in turn how does this contribute to the canon of contemporary and traditional mourning jewellery.

I am eternally grateful that my endeavours on this path and project have been supported by colleagues and friends. It is with their help and guidance that I have been able to dig deep in the personal in order to touch something that is universal - the process of grief and creation.

This project is part of Radiant Pavillion’s 2021 programme - Melbourne’s Contemporary Jewellery and Object Biennial.

+ radiantpavilion.com.au