UFO Indigo and Malachite Necklace by Cat Merrick

This design is meant to create a strip of vibrating light in the center of the chest. The multicolor designs are contrasting pairings of bold and neutral colors, buzzing with tension as the eye flickers between the two colors, looking for a place to land. It is an idea stolen from painting and deconstructed in an art object made with pure painting pigment. Named UFO as an encouragement not to limit escapist fantasies to this planet. Pure fine art pigment set in thick quartz, housed in precision machined black anodized aluminum and attached with a ribbed magnetic clasp.

Winner of best jewelry collection in the 2021 NYC Design Awards.

Cat Merrick deconstructs traditional jewelry themes of light and color with experimental materials like painting pigment and scientific lenses. When jewelry is referred to as sculptural, it is usually in reference to traditional lost wax casting and modeling technique going back to antiquity. Cat doesn't use a single construction technique in common with traditional jewelry and is instead influenced by the experimental optics of contemporary sculptors like Olafur Eliasson. In other words, it is sculptural, but in a contemporary sense.