We’re glad to introduce Angelos Angelidis, a Greek artist based in Athens who has followed a unique path to contemporary jewellery. We had the pleasure of hosting Angelos at the 2024 edition of Cluster Contemporary Jewellery ‘Metamorphosis’, after he received an award from Cluster through his participation in Autor 2024, marking an important milestone in his jewellery career.

Our Head Curator, Eleonora Varotto, met him and is now proud to share this inspiring journey into art and contemporary jewellery. After a six-year career as a flying trapeze artist and fifteen years as a professional film and documentary editor in Paris, Angelos returned to Athens to focus on sculpture and jewellery.

At the core of Angelos’ practice is the cube, a shape that has fascinated him since childhood. Through his creations, he seeks to give life and movement back to this form, exploring the intersection of the physical and digital worlds. His pieces reflect on the relationship between humans and technology, the body as interface, and the struggle for liberation from societal constraints. Emerging in the post-lockdown era, his jewellery uses light, shadow, and structure to create wearable reflections on presence, control, and transformation.

In this interview, Angelos shares his vision and the poetic, meticulous approach that transforms metal and space into thought-provoking contemporary jewellery.

Eleonora: You describe the cube as both a childhood symbol and a philosophical starting point. What drew you to this shape, and why does it continue to fascinate you today?

Angelos: To be honest I realised my attachment to the cube when I started making jewels, and I was rather astonished how it took me back to my childhood. I still have images in my head as a child being fascinated by geometrical forms. My first artistic creations as an adolescent were based on square or cube structures. Then my university graduation project was a performance happening inside a cubical structure and finally my sculpture work since the last 3 years has strictly been based on cubic forms. Since then I’ve realised that to my perception the cube is a body so complete that it has lost its ability to evolve and therefore has come to an eternal stillness. As I do love this form, my challenge is to give life back to it in order for it to regain movement, lightness and expression. When it comes to applying this concept to my jewellery work I believe that a jewel is the closest you can get to a three dimensional object becoming alive, therefore it was obvious to me to use the cube as a vehicle towards my creative goals.

Eleonora: Your practice reflects on post-pandemic limitations and the idea of ‘petrification.’ What role do you think art, and jewellery in particular, can play in restoring freedom or fluidity in times of societal rigidity?

Angelos: Art, therefore jewellery too, is the means of expressing all good and evil in this world. It functions as a catalyst to the creator as well as the audience for understanding and dealing with life. Effective art will always have an impact on the audience as it will be perceived directly or indirectly. When we become aware of the reality around us we have made the first step towards changing it. This is the huge power of art and the huge responsibility it bears too.

The great advantage of jewellery is that it is an art form that will come to you. You do not have to go to a gallery, a museum, a cinema or a theatre as it is constantly out there. It is also an art form the wearer can build very powerful emotional relations to. It may carry a story, represent a moment or a place in time, a memory, a feeling etc. The owner might also choose to wear it a certain day because it can relieve that person from a discomforting emotional state. Jewellery can also bear metaphysical meanings to people, like the protection shield of a lucky charm for example.

Finally it is a very powerful communication medium. A jewel attracts attention to the wearer which is a major step in modern society where people lose most contact with the outside world, they just see what they need to see to get through their day. A jewel can break this isolation, it can create reactions, get people to talk, break the ice.

Eleonora: What are you currently researching or experimenting with? Are there new materials, forms, or technologies you're excited to explore?

Angelos: This past year I had the chance to attend a few jewellery exhibitions that had been mind blowing for me. They have given me the opportunity to re-examine my work and consider new directions and ideas. Exploring non geometrical forms, use new mediums and introduce more colour in my work are now fundamental for my evolution. I have also been recently learning the lost wax technique and experimenting with found objects too. I feel lucky to have a lot of ideas at the moment and the fact that the magic cocktail of test and failure can give birth to new ones is pretty reassuring!

The work of Angelos is available on the Cluster online store.

Eleonora: Your path, from circus performer to film editor to jewellery artist, is extraordinary. How have these different disciplines shaped the way you perceive and create form?

Angelos: I guess I have always found common elements in my different disciplines and I believe this is what has somehow been accumulating into a way of perceiving and creating my artwork. I believe the most common element is the challenge to create something beautiful from constraining mediums.

Circus arts and film editing are extremely disciplined activities. Safety, training, shows schedule and constant evolving of acts are some examples of what one needs to be a good circus artist, while technology, deadlines, budget limitations and knowledge of the cinema art are some of the editor’s unquestionable capacities too. And through these you are asked to create free, innovative and inspiring work with an emotional impact on the viewer. This is the reality with jewellery too in my opinion, as following the natural laws of metal, stone, plastic or any other material you might use you are asked to create light, beautiful, striking, airy and easy to wear pieces of art.

Eleonora: There’s a strong digital undercurrent in your pieces; the cube as a 3D pixel, for example. Do you see your work as a commentary on our increasingly digital existence?

Angelos: Absolutely. My first jewellery work was derived from my earlier sculptures which were large structures of cubes created by wire, worn around the body and creating an effect of traversing it. Through these I was questioning the existence of the digital world in our everyday life as these cubes were representing three dimensional pixels.

Digital technology seems to be more and more the future of all human activity and I believe artists have to keep reminding it to people. I’m part of the last generation that grew up without mobile phones and therefore I can be very critical to what I see. I should be adapting to change but still I cannot help questioning it either.

Eleonora: Light and shadow are important elements in your structures. How do you use these intangible aspects to shape the viewer’s or wearer’s experience?

Angelos: What fascinates me with metal is that texture reveals itself to you through movement in light. This gives a great opportunity to create surprises. It is the reason why I usually design jewels that change as you look at them from different angles as each side has often a different design or texture. Depending also on which finger you wear a ring for example, certain sides will be covered by the neighbouring finger or even other rings. The moment you change finger you change the ring’s look too. Finally I do like creating effects with the light traversing the jewel. I use a lot of enamel on my jewellery and I always try to let the light run through it from several openings. Sometimes different effects happen even when the jewel is not worn but simply standing on a surface, a mini sculpture in other words. After all it is like making a small toy, you can play with it by applying different light sources.