Opening In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on Dec 1, 6-8PM, with the lighting of the works happening at 6:30pm.

On View Dec 1 - Feb 11, 11AM-6PM.

Coinciding with the darkest time of the year when people gather together to warm by a fire, light candles with reverence, gaze at celestial bodies, and add magic to the evenings with soft twinkling bulbs. Lux is an invitation to find illumination during the wintertime. This exhibition will showcase new objects made by artists that bring and house light.   

Featured artists include: Amelia Toelke, Amy Lemaire, Angela Dai, Beca Acosta, Brian Weissman, Hilla Shapira, Ho'o Hee, Jo-Ann Arosemena, Madelaine Corbin, Mia Hebib, Moein Shashaei, Naama Levitt, Odette Channell, Rocío Inès Marsyas, Samuel Guillen, Shuoyuan Bai, Suna Bonometti, Suzanne Sullivan, Tamar Mogendorff, and Zahra Almajidi.

This exhibition was curated by Naama Levit, Erin S. Daily and Brian Weissman.

Opening In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on Sept 9th, 7-9PM.

On View Sept 9 - Nov 4, 11AM-6PM.

We are also hosting an Artist Talk with Funlola Coker on November 4th, 3-4PM in the Gallery.

I am interested in what brings people together. Objects, offerings and acts of care towards one another. This shows up in my relationships with family - traditional and chosen. I examine how these gestures and phenomena live within our consciousness.

These sculptures are imbued with meaning through the history of their materials and representation of objects. Their careful arrangement alludes to a place just visited or forgotten, relics of lived experience and shared memories. Inspiration of form comes from sculptural braiding styles in Nigeria that I observed as a child, as well as calabashes and objects in my home.

My material choices are specific. Mounds are constructed from materials typically found in scene building. They allude to the dream-like quality of memories, and the half-remembered facsimile of what was once tangible. Alabaster - light and glowing, it grounds my objects, it is heavy, yet soft to the touch and delicate if scratched. Pewter can appear slippery, soft, and retains its liquid-like qualities when poured without too much restriction. The imperfect pours and fluidity glisten like half-remembered thoughts.

Through this body of work, curious objects are more than they appear to be. I am building a connection to home with tools of navigation. They are maps, memories, and relics from the slippery spaces and the mundane.

- Funlola Coker

Funlola Coker is a metalsmith from Lagos, Nigeria.

In 2007 Coker moved to Memphis, TN to pursue a BFA in Sculpture from Memphis College of Art. Funlola is fascinated by history, the evolution of culture and storytelling. Funlola creates narrative sculptures that call on nostalgic memories and moments of the mundane that are held dear. Coker has taught at notable craft institutions such as Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

Funlola’s work has been exhibited at Brooklyn Metal Works, the Fuller Craft Museum, Tone Gallery in Memphis and the National Ornamental Metal Museum. In 2020, Coker received the Arts Memphis Arts Accelerator grant, and was a 2022 Thayer Fellowship recipient from the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government. Funlola holds an MFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz.

A Fracturing Practice | Patricia Domingues

Read the AJF Interview featuring the exhibition with Patricia Domingues here: Lines and Fractures

Shop the exhibition here: A Fracturing Practice

Brooklyn Metal Works has the pleasure to invite you to visit the first solo exhibition of the jewellery artist Patricia Domingues in the United States.

Through my artistic practice I have been exploring fracturing movements in both artificial and natural materials. What specifically intrigues me is the tension between intentional acts, such as cutting into the material, and uncontrolled accidents, such as fractures. Through the will to control, the fractures develop and are liberated as the material inevitably cracks in release. The lines, fractures and cuts visible in my work are always the result of repetitive gestures performed on the material and its responsive language. They evoke a sort of geological archive, based on a succession of bodily actions or events. This perspective, that craft interplays with the wilderness found in materials, clashes with classic notions which consider it to be the exercise of masterly control over materials and techniques. Whilst the cut is a premeditated decision, the fracture is partially out of my control since I can never entirely control its shape and intensity within the material. From this non-anthropocentric view, skill is being reinterpreted as a way to relate to materials and landscapes. As I metabolise the crack in my practice, I sporadically feel in tune with it. Whilst creating stages for materials to perform on, establishing a relationship of authorship, I look at myself as an intermediator, as someone who initiates actions that end up having a will of their own.

Patricia Domingues gained a Master of Arts from the University of Trier, Department of Gemstone and Jewellery Design in Idar-Oberstein, Germany in 2013 and a PhD in Visual Arts from the University of Hasselt & PXL-MAD School of Arts in 2022. Since 2009 she has participated in group and solo exhibitions across Europe and further afield. 

Her work has received numerous prizes: New Traditional Jewellery in Amsterdam (2012), Talente Award in Munich (2014), Mari Funaki Award for Emerging Artist in Australia (2014) and the Young Talent Prize of the European World Crafts Council in Belgium (2015).

Currently, Domingues is a research fellow at Jewellery-Linking Bodies Department, Gerrit Rieteveld Academie where she investigates how artificial intelligence, metaverse worlds and digital structures frame the way humans think while drastically reshaping the way landscapes are handled. The main focus of her research involves exploring the way technology lives through extractivism, dependent on mineral and geological sources.

We are also hosting an Artist Talk with Patricia Domingues July 16, 2-3PM in the Gallery.

Additionally we are offering an Artist Workshop: Meeting Speculative Nature(s) with Patricia Domingues and Edu Tarín July 17 & 18, 10AM - 5PM 

Artist Website: patriciadomingues.pt

Please visit the links below to shop these amazing ceramic pieces!

Join us in the Gallery and in the Garden for a ceramic show featuring:

Suzanne Sullivan

Melissa Weiss

Maggie Boyd

Opening May 12th 7pm

The Show is Open during our business hours until June 30th 2023.

In the Gallery and in the Garden