As light rain and a gentle mist rolls over the Arrochar Alps towards the small village of Tarbert on Loch Lomond, writer and now curator Kate Matthams is huddled in a café preparing for an epic trip around Oban, Mull, the Western Highlands, Glasgow and finally Edinburgh, where her first exhibition, ‘Terrane’, will be opening at Ætla gallery during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Exploring the relationship between landscape, identity and jewellery with 11 artists assembled for their innovative use of materials, craftsmanship and narrative, this is her first curation and the gallery's first use of an external curator.
'The idea for the exhibition started with materiality from the landscape, like a kind of topography of memory,' says Matthams of how the events and physical materials we encounter in life, connect us to places we inhabit as a central theme for the show.
Alice Cicolini’s hand-carved ebony cuffs with landscape agate set into jasper illustrate this nicely with the combined and equal value of maker’s skill, unconventional materials and landscape. Inspired by India with its spicy milieu of 'cow-dung fires, red dust coming off the heritage buildings, kites circling gardens and the mist…', her pieces are rich with the transformative energy of her experiences there since she began visiting in 1999.
Alice Cicolini’s cuffs are hand-carved ebony, with hand-carved jasper, landscape agate and 18ct yellow gold
Lola Fehirst's ‘Celestia’ cocktail ring in indigo aluminium with Afghan Lapis and cognac diamonds refers to the Kofar Mata dye pits of Kano in northern Nigeria, where indigo twigs, potassium and ash were used to dye fabric sold to the Tuaregs, also known as the blue men of the desert. Now based in Paris, Fehirst draws a parallel between both places, saying 'there is something exquisite about the reverence around the craft of jewellery making in Paris that is echoed in Kano, and which has an element of the sacred about it’.
Ring by Lola Fehirst
Castro Smith employs a hammer-and-chisel technique he devised while studying in Japan under Hiroshi Suzuki, Kenji Io and National Living Treasure Mamoru Nakagawa, combined with hand-pushed engraving to create his solid silver signet ring. The ring is a palette cleanser to his usually brightly coloured ceramic pictorial engravings and is one of the few pieces in the exhibition with no gemstones. Ruth Tomlinson’s pieces, in contrast, all feature sapphire clusters from Sri Lanka, where she visited mines and connected with artisanal cutters and miners.
Castro Smith’s ‘Chisel’ signet ring
Ruth Tomlinson ring
From the textured beauty of Ellis Mhairi Cameron’s Scottish kilt pins in yellow gold studded with baguette diamonds to the Scottish agates and French sapphires used by Sarah Madeleine Bru, the abstract mother of pearl employed by Melanie Georgacopoulos and the NHS X-ray silver combined with SMO gold by Emefa Cole – material culture profoundly connects each artist to an individual time and place in this exhibition. Nada Ghazal’s enamel dome-shaped blossom rings are inspired by her eternal muse, the city of Beirut, which has weathered so much but continues to be, in Mattham’s words, ‘her absolute beacon and guiding light’.
Ellis Mhairi’s ‘Cameron’ pin
Sarah Madeleine’s ‘Bru’ necklace
Inesa Kovalova’s white gold, Akoya pearl and diamond ‘Link’ earrings and ‘Carré’ ring celebrate her upbringing in the Donbas region of the Ukraine, which is now near the front line, and the idea that in jewellery, your roots, home and identity can be carried with you in hard times. True value is in the message, and the materials, however valuable, are simply tools.
'They really got under my skin,' Matthams says of the artists, gathered for the first time as a group for the exhibition. 'I wanted to use something other than words to tell their stories in a different way.'
'Terrane' runs from 7-31 August 2026, at 17 St Stephen St, Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH3 5AN