Ana Khouri celebrates gold in its most organic form in a new collection of jewellery, ‘Raw Editions’, which marries her distinctive sensual silhouettes with the glorious tactility of textured gold.
‘I’ve been working with ethically and responsibly sourced gold since I first started creating jewellery,’ Khouri tells us when asked why the time felt right to celebrate imperfection. ‘Over the last two years, I also became an ambassador for Fairmined and started spending more time with the gold miners, understanding their living conditions. With that, I also got to experience the mining process. It was during this experience, when I was kneeling in the dirt with my hands covered in soil, that I became fascinated by the raw glory and natural texture of the gold coming from the Earth. Unearthing even the smallest fragment of raw gold, holding it in my hand, I felt as if nature’s creative energy and my own had merged,’ adds Khouri, who featured in the Wallpaper* USA 300 guide to creative America earlier this year.
It was a first for Khouri, who until that moment hadn’t felt the desire to explore texture in her jewellery. Upon returning to New York and revisiting her sculptures, textured forms began to appear organically in her work. ‘With “Raw”, I explore the texture I found on that raw natural gold and the earth that brought it into being. As an artist and a jeweller, I am always looking for ways to accentuate the natural elegance of what are arguably the most beautiful materials found on Earth. “Raw” is a continued exploration of my long-standing inspiration of shape and form.’
The jewellery, whether curving round the lobe or the wrist, borrows from this seductive physicality. ‘Trying not to rationalise the work in a logical way [was the main challenge],’ Khouri adds. ‘Instead, trying to remember the feelings I felt during my experiences with those different textures – in order to create the texture that felt right to me.’
