JOY BC: BETWEEN RUIN & ROOT I OPENING 29 SEPTEMBER 6-8 PM (30 SEPTEMBER- 10 November 2026)

  Joy BC: Between Ruin and Root 29 September – 10 November 2026 Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is delighted to present Between Ruin and Root, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by London-born Italian British artist and goldsmith Joy BC. On view from 29 September to 10 November 2026, the exhibition brings together more than twenty works spanning the artist’s evolving practice, including six new works created exclusively for the exhibition. Opening with a Private View on Tuesday 29 September at 6 pm, the exhibition will be accompanied by a specialconversation on Tuesday 6 October at 6 pm, when Joy BC will be joined by her former master, the renowned goldsmith Giovanni Corvaja, and writer and curator Melanie Grant to discuss craftsmanship, material innovation and the enduring relationship between master and apprentice. Marking the artist’s first solo exhibition in London and her first presentation at Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery, Between Ruin and Root reflects over a decade of research into mythology, material culture and transformation. Working between sculpture and jewellery, Joy BC creates objects that challenge conventional notions of preciousness while exploring how beauty, memory and meaning evolve through time. At the heart of the exhibition lies the idea of transformation. […]

Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is delighted to present Into the Heart of the Moon, a special evening celebrating the launch of The Calabash, a new series of wearable sculptures by London-based jewellery designer Satta Matturi. Exclusively showcasing for the first time at the gallery, the series transforms one of Africa’s oldest and symbolic objects into contemporary wearable art, celebrating the values that continue to unite us across cultures. The calabash is derived from the gourd fruit, one of humanity’s oldest cultivated plants.For centuries it has served as a vessel for food and water, a musical instrument and an object used in ceremonies and rituals. Beyond its practical function, its spherical shape is believed to be a symbol of the universe reaffirming its global importance of bringing balance, wisdom and protection to humanity and the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. The Calabash series debuts with seven unique wearable sculptures: a convertible pendant that can also be worn as a brooch, three rings, a jabot pin, a pair of earrings and an additional ring from the gallery’s collection. Materiality is intentionally explored with various mediums such as gold, wood, bronze and aluminium, making each sculptural piece organic with the […]

On Monday, 22 June, Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery welcomed Ileana Boubouli, daughter of Sophia Vari, for a special conversation exploring the artist’s journey into wearable art. Ileana shared personal memories and insights into Sophia’s creative world, discussing the stories behind some of her most significant works and the making of Liens d’Amour, her final wearable artwork. The conversation offered a more intimate perspective on Sophia Vari’s practice and accompanied the exhibition, recently highlighted by Forbes as one of the five jewellery exhibitions not to miss in London this spring. See the video of the conversation here.          

Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery presents Liens d’Amour, the final piece created by Sophia Vari, opening on 20 May 2026, three years after the artist’s passing. The exhibition celebrates Vari’s legacy through her last wearable sculpture, conceived shortly before her death. Completed in 2023, Liens d’Amour is a necklace made of ebony, 18kt yellow gold, and vivid orange-red coral. Produced in an edition of three, plus two artist’s proofs, the work encapsulates the sculptural vocabulary that defined Vari’s career, translated into a portable form that maintains the ambition, material presence, and formal integrity of her large-scale sculptures. One of the most technically complex works Vari ever realised, Liens d’Amour required over six months of development to achieve controlled mobility. Its sophisticated construction allows the wearable sculpture to move fluidly on the body, reflecting her lifelong exploration of balance, gravity, and motion. For the first time, the exhibition presents the complete creative process behind the work, including the plastiline prototype modelled by Vari shortly before she was hospitalised, alongside her original drawings and maquettes. These materials offer rare insight into her working process and artistic discipline during the final phase of her life. Departing from her customary references to mythology, Greek dances, and islands, Vari titled this final […]

  Cosmic Jewelry by Sheila Hicks Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is honoured to unveil Cosmic Jewelry during the opening of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia at the Monaco & Grand Canal Hotel in Venice (6–10 May 2026). Marking the first collection of unique jewellery by Sheila Hicks, who for over seven decades has conducted fibre into a language of emotion, tension, and living colour. Throughout her career, Hicks has treated thread as architecture and colour as structure. Her works, whether monumental installations or intimate compositions, breathe with an internal rhythm: soft yet disciplined, spontaneous yet precise. In her hands, fibre becomes both material and metaphor. Conceived over two years through a close dialogue between the artist, Atelier L & L (Louise Zanartu & Louis Boudart), and Elisabetta Cipriani, the collection brings together one-of-a-kind pendants and brooches in gold and silver, where silk, cotton and linen entwine with pearls, minerals, stones, and fragments of precious metal. These adornments carry the joyous, chromatic intensity and tactile immediacy of larger sculptures, while enhancing their intimate, sensual essence. Cosmic Jewellery draws inspiration from two central forms in Hicks’ practice: the sculptural Boules and the intimate Minimes. The Boules, spheres composed of threads wrapped around a core often formed from garments once belonging […]

Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is pleased to present The First Encounter, opening on Wednesday 25th February from 6–8 PM, a group exhibition bringing together 35 contemporary artists in a focused exploration of one of the most ancient and immediate gestures of adornment: wearing something close to the face. Earrings are perhaps the most relational form of jewelry. They do not inhabit the body silently or discreetly — they move, reflect light, respond to expression, and participate in conversation. Existing in constant dialogue with the face, the gaze, and the presence of the wearer, they are often the first jewel perceived when meeting someone — a detail that becomes language. For more than 4,000 years, earrings have traversed cultures and civilizations as symbols of protection, power, identity, and belonging. Positioned close to the eyes and the voice, they occupy a uniquely communicative space between object and expression. In today’s world — shaped by images, screens, and visual communication — this dimension is amplified. The face has returned to the center of daily experience, and with it, earrings regain renewed expressive urgency. They are immediate, intimate, and personal — capable of transforming presence through a minimal yet powerful gesture. The First Encounter assembles […]

Elisabetta Cipriani on Artist Jewellery as Wearable Art and Collectible Design At Teatro Palladio, Elisabetta Cipriani took part in Coded Couture – Jewelry as Cultural Code in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, an event organised by Trendvision Jewellery + Forecasting. Invited to speak on the role of jewelry in contemporary culture, Cipriani was tasked with presenting artist jewellery as a field of artistic, conceptual, and craft experimentation—one that today sits firmly within the realm of wearable art and collectible design. Drawing on over fifteen years of curatorial practice at her eponymous London gallery, founded in 2009, Elisabetta Cipriani articulated a vision in which jewelry transcends adornment to become a form of visual art. Italian by birth and British by adoption, she has consistently invited internationally renowned contemporary artists to create projects that explore the body as a site of meaning, transformation, and intimacy. “The jewelry I present tells a story—an idea, a connection between the artist and the material. The intention is to communicate the value of creations that are expressions of visual art, to be appreciated as much as a sculpture or a painting.” During her talk, Cipriani traced the evolution of artist jewellery from experimental studio practice to […]

Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is pleased to present The Treasures of Queen Elizabeth, a new collection by Italian French multidisciplinary artist Faust Cardinali. Composed of thirteen one-of-a-kind jewels, this sculptural body of work will be unveiled through a live performance on 16 October 2025 at 6:30 pm, during Frieze week in London. The exhibition will remain on view until 14 November 2025. The Treasure of Queen Elizabeth is both a performance and a collection, shaped around the theme of transformation. Each of the thirteen works stands as an autonomous jewel, while collectively they form a single poetic body: an imagined entity that comes alive through movement, gesture, and wearability. The project invites the audience into a world where jewellery transcends adornment to become a medium of storytelling and change. “This project is based on the idea of a ‘hypothetical body’,” explains Faust Cardinali. By this, the artist refers to a symbolic body assembled from jewels, one not defined by anatomy but by metaphor. Together, these works suggest a body that embodies meaning rather than form. Highlights of the collection include the Crown of Queen Elizabeth; The Queen’s Skeleton, a necklace in silver and 18k gold incorporating charred bread and resin; The […]

Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery presents Hotel 87 & Other Relics Curated by Melanie Grant, celebrated Luxury Writer and Curator 23-27 September 2025 To celebrate the publication of The Jewelry Book (Phaidon), Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery and Melanie Grant host anew exhibition highlighting 20 artists and design houses in London. This September 24th, Phaidon will publish The Jewelry Book (£59.95 GBP / €69.95 EUR) edited by Melanie Grant, author of Phaidon’s bestselling Coveted (2020), a stunning and authoritative A-to-Z guide to 300 of jewelry’s greatest names spanning more than 200 years. From Chanel pearls and iron jewels at Hemmerle set with flawless diamonds to the Notorious B.I.G. and Greta Garbo, this book offers indispensable insight into the artists, creative houses, and style icons who have defined jewelry. Eminent creatives such as Wallace Chan, Elsa Schiaparelli, Suzanne Belperron, and Bhagat appear alongside such lesser-known trailblazers such as Maōri jade carver Joel Marsters and Winifred Mason Chenet, apioneering metalsmith and designer. And, of course, no book on jewelry would be complete without pieces from the great heritage houses: Cartier, Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Chaumet, Harry Winston, and Chopard. In conjunction with the book’s launch, Melanie Grant will curate two exhibitions: one […]

Signs, Painting series (round), 2025; 18kt yellow gold, niello earrings; L 7,2 cm; Unique within a series Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is excited to announce Marks of Time, Gigi Mariani’s first solo exhibition in the UK, opening on Tuesday, 10th June 2025. The show is dedicated to the evocative and transformative artistry of the renowned contemporary jewellery artist and will run until 4th July 2025. Gigi Mariani is part of EC LAB, the gallery’s initiative supporting emerging and established contemporary jewellery artists who challenge the boundaries of jewellery through innovation and unique vision.This highly anticipated show will present 38 unique pieces of jewellery, including rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, created specifically for this exhibition. Marks of Time reflects a dialogue between tradition and experimentation—a cornerstone of Mariani’s practice.Trained in Modena and working as a goldsmith since 1985, Gigi Mariani bridges the ancient and the contemporary. His pieces integrate age-old techniques such as niello, an ancient method using sulphur, silver, and copper to create darkened reliefs, with modern processes such as laser etching and surface manipulation by hammering. The result is jewellery that embodies texture, rawness, and emotion—where fractures, oxidation, and corrosion are not flaws, but defining elements. Marks of Time will […]