ENCOUNTERS is the latest exhibition to grace the rooms of Blackwell. Running at the Bowness Arts and Crafts house until December 24, it brings together more than 60 pieces of jewellery as well as drawings and photographs by David Watkins, one of the leading artists working in jewellery design.

His work draws upon a variety of influences ranging from travel to music and film. And his early experience as a detailed model maker on science fiction films, primarily Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, has become intertwined with his interest in ethnography and body ornament.

Born in 1940, he trained as a sculptor and has been producing jewellery since the mid-1960s. He has been professor and head of goldsmithing, silversmithing, metalwork and jewellery at the Royal College of Art since 1984, and his work has been exhibited internationally, worn by individuals and collected by museums for the last 30 years.

Although early examples of David Watkins’s work will also be on display, the exhibition will concentrate on more recent work made between 1993 and 2003. The most recent work continues his concentration on steel and plastic worked with new and advanced technologies, where strong geometric shapes are modulated through colour to transform them into dramatic pieces of jewellery.

Both his style and a progressive approach challenge the concept of traditional jewellery.

Many items are available for purchase.

For further details contact 015394-46139.