The New Zealand artist Moniek Schrijer is internationally recognised for her innovative approach to contemporary jewellery. In her work, she transforms new, second-hand, recycled, and found materials into intriguing jewellery and objects that balance between jewel, sculpture, and wall piece. With a sharp eye for form, texture, and light, she creates works that blur the boundaries between dimensions and invite the viewer to reconsider the relationship between object, body, and perception.
Moniek draws inspiration from both her physical and digital environment, exploring in her practice the dualities between jewel and object, object and wearer. She employs a wide range of techniques, from traditional goldsmithing to printmaking, photography, and painting. With projects such as A Hologram of a Diamond, she gained international recognition, including the prestigious Herbert Hofmann Prize (2016).
The residency at DIVA offers her the opportunity to deepen her research in dialogue with the museum’s collection and library. She intends to focus on the rich tradition of regional jewellery, in particular the Dutch oorijzer and other European forms of adornment. These she will connect with motifs and forms from her homeland, Aotearoa (New Zealand). The result will be a new body of work in which European ornamentation and New Zealand flora and fauna meet.
During her residency, Moniek plans to experiment with techniques such as pressing, forging, and forming silver wire and sheet, in order to create sculptural and dimensional jewellery. She will combine these with her own stone-setting methods and take inspiration from the motifs, engravings, and chains in the Lunden collection. This will result in wearable artworks – from headpieces and neckpieces to brooches – in which historical techniques and contemporary aesthetics converge.
For Moniek, the residency at DIVA is more than an opportunity to develop new techniques: it is also a way to make cultural cross-pollination visible. Her work during the residency will celebrate the hybrid and layered nature of heritage and demonstrate how past and future can come together in contemporary jewellery.
