Fumiki Taguchi

Fumiki Taguchi reinterprets the brooch and pendant through an unlikely manipulation of themes and materials. Taguchi’s jewelry appears to be bedazzled in fine gemstones, refracting line through different cuts and angles, but the artist achieves this effect by chiseling sterling silver into a luminescence that simulates precious stones such as diamonds. 

Taguchi’s use of silver points to the construction of value in jewelry, suggesting silver is equally radiant as a valuable rock. “Without setting any stones, I use what would normally be the frame for the gems to bring out both the strength and the delicacy of the metal itself,” Taguchi has said. 

The brooch and pendant resemble a coat of arms or family crest for Taguchi; by undermining the material signifiers and emptying the crest’s iconography, the brooches become vessels for newly emerging types of kinship and relation that transcend old bloodlines.