The colour and the shape

No. Not THAT album, although I maintain its a good one.

This post is about the work of David Watkins. A man I first learnt about during my formative years. A-Level art/late 90's (eeeeek) to be precise.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE his work. The organic fluidity of the shapes, set up against the rigid materials he often uses. And then there's the colour - jewel-strong, striking azures and rubies combined with straight gold/silver or a monochrome "palette". The shapes in particular share a theme that warrants proximity to the body - often moulded around limbs and muscles, drawing the eye to them.

At a formative moment in the 1960s Watkins had worked on special effects for Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, the film 2001, designing and creating model spacecraft - I don't know if being aware of this draws a firmer association between the influence of the film's aesthetics on the minimalism of his design, or the other way around....

A jeweller/artist since the early 70's, his pieces, to me, have omnipresent relevance & appeal. You cannot define them by a decade.











Collections include The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.