Jennifer Gray

Jennifer is an award-winning multi-disciplinary designer maker, researcher and educator. She uses a diverse range of materials in her works and as part of her teaching. Her original training focussed on jewellery, silversmithing and general metal work and these disciplines still remain at the core of what she teaches and her own practice. Jennifer has applied the skills established through a foundation in jewellery and silversmithing in various capacities elsewhere in the design sector.

Although the objects she makes and the materials she uses may vary with each piece, each series is underpinned by her use of both traditional methods and digital technologies developed on Jewellery and Silversmithing programmes. 

The work Jennifer produces would not be possible without her experience of both traditional and current digital methods. She aspires to produce work that can leave anyone viewing it uncertain as to how it was made and hopes to demonstrate that new technological approaches can blend quite naturally into a piece of work as a means of enhancing tradition rather than replacing it completely.

Jennifer designs and makes jewellery and homeware in a range of materials. She sells and exhibits her work nationally and internationally in museums, design shops/festivals and art fairs. She works with commercial as well as private clients and regularly collaborates with Artists, Designers, Historians on practice-led research projects.

Her work is quite often informed by research into historical sources, which is undertaken alone or in partnership with museums, national organisations, historians or Archaeologists. Off-shoot ideas, themes or techniques from these projects are adapted into bespoke one-off pieces or commercial small-scale production ranges of products.

Selected Exhibitions

2014 – present: work is exhibited annually - Art Palm Beach, Florida and SOFA, Sculptural Objects, Functional Art, Chicago (represented by New York based Gallery, Charon Kransen)

2020: Exhibition of new work in collaboration with Photographer Susan Castillo exhibited at ‘Sketch’, 3 Michelin star restaurant as part of London Design Festival

2019: Intuitive Making Installation as part of Bauhaus centenary festival ‘School Fundamental’, Bauhaus Dessau

2018: The Re(a)d Bed, Art and Therapeutic Design, Curated by Dr Stacey Hunter, City Arts Centre Edinburgh

2018: Design Exhibition Scotland (DES), Lyon and Turnbull, Edinburgh.  Curated by Susanna Beaumont (Doggerfisher Gallery)

2018: ‘Sans les Mains!’, exhibition Curated by Michael Eden, Bernardaud Porcelain Factory in Limoges, France.  Jennifer was amongst thirteen of the field’s leading international ceramic artists invited to exhibit work which showcased the creative use of new technologies in ceramics, where ideas and concepts lead the way, rather than the technology.  

2017: Showcase of work with furniture designer Angus Ross, The Caledonian Club, part of London Craft Week programme

2016: Scottish Pavilion at London Design Fair, London Design Festival 

2015: Press Print To Make? With Michael Eden, British Ceramic Biennial, Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art at Manchester Metropolitan University

2015: Collect Open Space, Saatchi Gallery London with Making Enhanced Collective

2014: Lesley Craze, London, 30 Years in the Making

2013/14: CREATIVE SPIRIT, National Museum of Scotland.  Exhibition of re-creations made using innovative technological and traditional craft skills to bring back to life objects which have not survived or have been badly preserved.

2013: MOST Salone London Design Festival - Studies For My Mind, Sir John Soane Museum.  Curated by Will Sorrell (Managing Director of Design Junction).  Jennifer was one of six designers, including Nigel Coates, selected to make and exhibit objects inspired by the Sir John Soane Museum.

2013: Sculptural Objects, Functional Art, (SOFA), Chicago

2013: Prototypes & Experiments VII and VII(2), Aram Gallery, London. The gallery was established in 2002 by curator Daniel Charny and Director Zeev Aram. Since then it has built up a strong presence and achieves international attention.

2013: Coronation Festival, Gardens at Buckingham Palace

2013: Saplings – 360º Vision, Group show of Contemporary Jewellery, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

2013: Talente (Schmuck), International Trade Fair, Munich

2012: 'A Spacial Surprise', London Design Festival, Mint Gallery, London

2012: Scoop, International Fashion Show, Saatchi Gallery, London

2012: Graduate Exhibition, Gallerie Marzee, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2012: 'Paradise', Milan Design Fair: Salone Internazionale del Mobile

Work Produced for Artists
2008/9: Silversmith for metal work produced for Turner Prize nominee Lucy Skaer, Kunsthalle, Basel
2008: Silversmith for metal work produced for Lucy Skaer, ‘The Siege’, Chisenhale Gallery, London

Stockists/Work in Private Collections

First Minister Office, Scottish Parliament – Private Collection

St James Palace, London – Private Collection

National Museum of Scotland - Public Collection

Gallerie Marzee, The Netherlands – Public Collection

The Newark Museum, New Jersey USA – Public Collection

Mint, 2 North Terrace, London, (Brompton Design District) http://www.mintshop.co.uk

Charon Kransen, New York

2016-22 Practice led Part-time PhD, School of Design, Edinburgh College of Art, Full Scholarship from Principal's Career Development Award

(Jennifer is currently undertaking a part-time practice-led PhD, which she began in September 2016. Her doctoral studies are supervised by Edward Hollis (ECA), Helen McCormack (GSA), and Geoffrey Mann (ECA). Her research is concerned with exploring how craft and design process of re-making/reconstruction can be used as a means to reinterpret and gain new perspectives on historical objects. The project proposed will demonstrate how the act of making can be used as an effective research methodology, offering new ways of understanding, interpreting and experiencing the complex/layered histories of public buildings.)

2010-12 Masters Degree Goldsmithing, Silversmithing Metalwork & Jewellery, Royal College of Art, London

2002-06 BA Honours in Design Silversmithing and Jewellery at Glasgow School of Art and Design. (First Class Honours Degree)

www.jennifergray.co.uk

www.makingenhanced.com

www.instagram.com/jennifergraystudio

https://twitter.com/_JenniferGray_