Jo McAllister

Jo is a studio jewellery artist whose practice is concerned with light, space and cloudwatching.  Alongside traditional goldsmithing techniques she uses wild stone tools percussively on fine silver and high carat gold, to create the intimately land-marked surfaces that have become synonymous with her work.

Bespoke commissions present heirloom gemstones, recycled sentimental gold and personal objects in miniature tableaux. Jewels are re-imagined and transformed to evoke those who once wore or gifted them, memories of place, or past aspects of the self.

Celestial Jewel Narratives, one-of-a-kind, ready-to-wear jewels for Sky Gazers, Sun Worshippers and Moon Bathers continue this vernacular. 

In her latest collection, Pearl Essence, she creates disruptions in silver, highlighted by oxide and hand-burnished, glinting edges.  These pieces allude to swathes of pearls draped across and stitched onto ivory white satin and sumptuous black velvet, as seen in Tudor paintings in London’s National Portrait Gallery.