100% Proof exhibition

Scottish jewellers and silversmiths are highly regarded across the world and in 2006 the 100% Proof exhibition provides a snapshot of the quality, innovation and talent which created and sustains this reputation.

The exhibition is curated by Dorothy Hogg, head of jewellery at Edinburgh College of Art, and is a successor to the first 100% Proof held in 2001.  In the catalogue for the first show Dorothy wrote ‘To be asked to invite all the makers I most admire in Scotland at this time of renaissance in the craft, to contribute to an exhibition which will travel the world, is the kind of project closest to my heart.’

The majority of the exhibitors are 30 and under and the show combines established makers, four of whom have been responsible for teaching the new generation, with makers in mid-career and new young designers.

The first 100% Proof showed work by 12 jewellers and six silversmiths and this second distillation has expanded to 22 jewellers and 10 silversmiths.

In the forword to the exhibition, Amanda Game of the Scottish Gallery considers the influx of new talent and after reviewing the achievements of established makers since 2001 writes ‘What the foregoing demonstrates is the way in which the senior artists in a small country, such as Scotland, can encourage the next generation not just by direct teaching and workshop training, important as this is, but also by demonstrating an unswerving commitment to excellence within their own artistic practice, in all its forms.’

In the catalogue for the previous exhibition Amanda Game captures the joy of 100% Proof when she writes ‘In a country whose official cultural exports in the field have tended to be dominated by the long shadows of Macintosh reproduction and the Celtic revival, this show triumphantly breaks the mould with everything from mirrored perspex magnetic earrings to sensuously chased silver bowls which evoke the beauties of the Scottish landscape.

Dorothy Hogg, with an unerring makers’ eye, has pinpointed contemporaries both young and established whose individual visions are transforming understanding of the rich potential of jewellery and metalwork.’

The new exhibition includes graduates from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee along with makers who have been attracted from their native countries to study and work in Scotland.

The jewellers exhibiting are Marianne Anderson, Donna Barry, Amy Chan, Susan Cross, Jenny Deans, Emma Gale, Grace Girvan, David Goodwin, Anna Gordon, Katy Hackney, Dorothy Hogg, Chiaki Kamikawa, Susan Kerr, Andrew Lamb, Beth Legg, Ann Little, Grainne Morton, Lynne Kirstin Murray, Yoshiko Nishina, Angela O’Kelly, Adam Paxon, Kaz Robertson, Joanne Thompson.  Silversmithing is represented by John Creed, Adrian Hope, Sarah Hutchinson, Marion Kane, William Kirk, Grant McCaig, Roger Millar, Michael Lloyd, Coilin Ó Dughghaill and Linda Robertson.

100% Proof, a second distallation of new work in jewellery and silversmithing from Scotland, started its tour at the Mobilia Gallery in Massachusetts last year.  It visited the Velvet da Vinci gallery in San Francisco is January 2006 and is on at the flow gallery in London from 17 March to 13 May, the Oriel Myrddin gallery in Carmarthen from 27 May to 8 July and finishes its tour in Scotland at the Scottish Gallery from 4 August to 6 September 2006.  Admission free.