The “Innocent” project gives me the chance to express an issue I am very much concerned with: the abuse against animals. The plastic toys are a way of representing an innocence that can only imply the horrible things that could might have happened.  I cut the animal toys the way butchers do, whilst others I use in twisted positions. After that I melt them, creating situations that I imagine they end up in. I paint them in lively colors that are not specific to those animals and this way the first impression of the audience is of a happy piece of jewelry and only then, after a closer examination, they truly see the animal and its suffering. Most of them are hand painted so that every brush stroke I make allows me to connect with that animal and feel its pain. The electroformed pieces represent the animals that live in cold metal cages, while the silk represents a natural material that stands for blood (red silk) and the darkness of the night (black silk). By creating more feminine pieces of jewelry I am trying to nurture those animals’ suffering.

Materials: plastic toys, electroformed, alpaca, silver, paint, varnish, onyx, silk, pigments, copper, gold.