Biography

Ema Fernandes has been making jewelry since she was 15 years old. Starting with wire, beads and found objects, she has progressed to work in sterling silver, copper, wood, and found objects. She graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in Jewelry Design. Ema is passionate about jewelry as a means of adorning and complementing the human body. Her work is usually big and bold, which she feels most flatters the shapes and curves of the body. She is deeply inspired by ancient and non-western jewelry which she feels shows the mark of its maker’s hand. Every piece that Ema creates has a sensitivity unique to her design sense. No two pieces are alike, nor could any piece in her collections be created by anyone else. Ema employs methods like cuttlefish casting and marriage of metals because of the ability to create contrasts of color and texture. She has always been fascinated by found rusted objects because of their industrial quality which she can use to create further contrasts with other, more smooth or polished surfaces. Ema’s most recent collection, which was shown at the Materia vs. Forma Exhibit at the Christiani Gallery in Torino, Italy, in 2009, focuses on contrasts between the textures of wood, metal, and found rusted objects. Some of the forms in the collection are big and chunky, while other forms are borrowed from the shapes of the found objects Ema used. There is a strong sense of geometry and the organic in aesthetic harmony.