GEMWING

Cluster Contemporary Jewellery
”AMALGAM”

GemWing is based in a home studio in Chicago, Illinois, USA, created and solely operated by 29-year-old jewelry designer and sculpture artist, Syd Davis. Davis grew up in Wisconsin, and their artistic identity is largely shaped by living in a chronically ill body since birth. They began beading in their youth and have evolved into the GemWing you experience today. They moved from Wisconsin to further pursue their education and received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2021, where they studied sculpture, fiber arts, and installations.

GemWing is a practice filled with lightweight, wearable sculpture as jewelry and accessories, and currently creates beaded sculptural objects to add to the GemWing world beyond just wearables.

Nesting in play, ecology, joy in times of isolation, and illusions of suspension in time, woven and hand-beaded GemSpheres emerge. GemWing works are created by Syd Davis with glass beads, stainless steel, thread cured in adhesive, and nylon-coated steel soft-flex wire hand-shaped and crimped into structural organic loops. Beads are strung onto monofilament, hand-knotted into a shape, then strung as their own bead. There are influences from sculpture, weaving, processing emotions, line drawings, micro-organisms, ecological shapes, and zero-gravity.

Since I was young, I cared for little beaded projects that became micro worlds in my times of isolation in and out of hospitalization mixed with my youth. I could expand beyond the four walls of my hospital room with my traveling studio of supplies. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Transforming... alchemizing. The wire-looped bead mazes resting in waiting rooms of hospitals, welcoming play and touch amongst grief—they were my earliest inspiration in kinetic sculpture. GemWing pieces hold sparks from my youth and are influenced by how I create as I age in my body. Each intuitively chosen color and shape morph into a kinetic micro-world as jewelry; they invite daydreams of shrinking down and floating through, climbing beaded ladders, resting on smooth glass of eco-shapes, befriending charm creatures in the world of GemWing for every wearer.

Artworks Statement:

Nesting in play, ecology, joy in times of isolation, and illusions of suspension in time, woven and hand-beaded GemSpheres emerge. GemWing works are created by Syd Davis with glass beads, stainless steel, thread cured in adhesive, and nylon-coated steel soft-flex wire hand-shaped and crimped into structural organic loops. Beads are strung onto monofilament, hand-knotted into a shape, then strung as their own bead.

Intuitively chosen colors and shapes morph into a kinetic micro-world as jewelry; they invite daydreams of shrinking down and floating through, climbing beaded ladders, resting on smooth glass of eco-shapes, befriending charm creatures in the world of GemWing.