Creating Art has always been the goal for the Chinese jewelry maker Feng Ji. Not satisfied to design jewelry in a traditional or commercial way for her brand Feng J, she is proud to improve new techniques and to improve new techniques from an artistic point of view.
All of this led her to Tefaf Maastricht, the Global Art Fair planned in the Netherlands for 15-20 March, where she will be one of the first artists of the mainland of China who exhibits there and one of the various jewelry designers among the 271 art dealers and galleries that are shown this year.
“I want to show more of my own works, and I want to see more works by other artists,” said Mrs. Feng in a recent video interview of her Paris Atelier. “I am not a professional collector, but I collect some artworks. I want to know more than just jewelry. “
She, together with eight other exhibitors, must be part of Showcase, a part of the stock market dedicated to emerging artists from different disciplines. And she is planning to show a total of nine pieces of new jewelry, priced from $ 200,000 to $ 800,000.
Mrs. Feng, 39, has received attention in the last ten years with her extensive creations, which often include dozens, if not hundreds of jewelry and can cost no less than a few million dollars. Born in Hangzhou, China, she now has the head office at Feng J Joaillerie d’Art in Shanghai, her production workshop is in Hong Kong and she opened a studio and shop on Place Vendôme in Paris in 2016.
She said she submitted an application to TEFAF Maastricht – a selection committee makes the final choices – on the advice of two people who in 2022 on the Fab Paris Art and antiques fair. One was a European collector, who she refused to call, and the other was Brigitte Péry-Sefeno, a jewelry specialist whose paternal great-grandfather created the prestigious Péry et Fils jewelry workshop in 1875.
Mrs. Feng comes from a family of collectors. Her great -grandfather of mother’s side was Shou Zhu, the judicial painter of Emperor Guangxu, who ruled China from 1875 to 1908, and her family has been gathering Chinese art for generations, she said. She initially studied furniture and product design at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, then obtained a master’s degree in 2012 at the London College of Fashion and studied at the Gemological Institute of America in Shanghai.
She now has a full -time staff of six in her Hong Kong Atelier: two stone Setters; A craftsman who specializes in Chinese lacquer; a carver; A person responsible for managing her gemstone library (every jewel that enters the library is scanned and classified by color and size, so that it can be easily found during the modeling and the final phases, she explained); And an administrative employee. She also works with a family of precious stones in China.
The most extensive pieces she made for Tefaf are two bracelets with stylized leaf designs. They have a “floating set”, in which double rosy gems are mounted in gold or titanium teeth that, said Mrs. Feng, are almost invisible to the human eye and make the jewelry almost weightless. One bracelet is engraved Lapis Lazuli and the other, sculpted marble, neither with which she had previously worked.
Impressionist artists have been inspired her work for a long time, but Mrs. Feng said she felt the need to branch for Tefaf and thought of traditional Chinese stamps. Often made from Jadeite, Marble or Lapis Lazuli, they are used to confirm signatures or to mark important documents.
“I was ready to experiment with Marble and Jade because these stones are very difficult to work with,” she said. “I saw this as a challenge. I think everyone likes marble in sculpture, and in China people like marble as a seal. I wanted to develop that kind of story. ‘
The other pieces went on the way to Tefaf’s earlier works and characteristic giving approach. The blossomed day and night chain took more than a year to make, she said, adding that she expects the surface of the completed piece to have 10 or 12 layers of precious stones. The toi et moi, or you and me, brooch combines opal with double rose -cut tourmaline, aquamarine, chrysoberyl, sapphire, spinel, tsavorite, quartz and white diamond. And a black Australian Opaal was used for the head of a dragonfly in your suis la brise, or I am the wind, brooch, with wings made of white diamond, tsavorite, chrysoberyl, touring tanzanite, sapphire, zircon and topaz.
Her extensive creations have encouraged TEFAF to invite her, according to Will Korner, the head of the organization.
“We see her on a route where she will be well established with other jewelry exhibitors,” he said. “We have artists who present their handmade jewelry and we have galleries that have to do in antique pieces. Feng J represents something for us that we could not say ‘no’. Her work creates a dialogue between East and West. (Other more established jewelry exhibitors must record Buccellati, a la Vieille Russie and Hemmerle.)
Her approach has attracted the attention of many experts and collectors.
“She is very young to have been launched directly in high jewelry, and it is interesting that she comes from mainland China,” said Vivienne Becker, a jewelry historian, journalist and author in London. “We have seen quite a few jewelry makers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but she is the first from China to work in a completely independent style. She dived into a deep dive in all her jewelry, including cutting stones. ‘
“There is something very romantic about her jewelry – very new and fresh,” Mrs Becker added. “She can be very brave. She found thin stones with double rose and saw something else. She saw the soft colors.
“They are thin and light, and the way she puts them can go through the light. It is all very emotionally charged. “
