Jonathon Zalakos, Self Portrait, 2021. 1000 x 1500 px. Digital photograph.
OPENING EVENT: Wednesday 19 January from 6:00pm at ANCA Gallery. Free to attend, no bookings required.
It was the urge to adorn oneself that defined the human being. This desire in its most pure form looks like jewellery, a practice with no truly rational justification. Jewellery spreads far beyond this idea however, it is the story of our entire civilisation.
It was the crown that made kings. The power of gold, silver, diamonds and rubies inspired authority and organised societies. Jewellery told us that the Earth was greedy for swallowing metals and stones, and that it was our job to tear these materials free. As wealth has increased and become centralised, we have only become more efficient and jewellery continues to flourish. We fight each other too, for jewellery.
Through our hands, jewellery is born. Through our eyes, the spores of jewellery enter our minds. When jewellery fruits, outbreaks of gold, shell and stone appear on our bodies. It then decomposes and is shed from our body, to be replaced by the fruits of the next generation. And yet jewellery is also old and wise. Some jewellery has roots so deep in our persons, families and societies that they have become indistinguishable. When these things speak, it is jewellery’s voice that is heard. Like a parasite and its host, we are reduced to a vessel.
This exhibition seeks to cast shadows from this inconceivable, weird being so that we might glean its features. Look as we might at the fruits of jewellery, it has a root system beneath the surface that we cannot comprehend. Lovecraft suggests that those who truly witness a thing so irreconcilable would suffer instant madness.
Jonathon Zalakos is a contemporary jewellery and object maker based in Canberra, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. Jonathon seeks to integrate traditional goldsmithing materials and techniques with contemporary practices and philosophical thought. Jonathon is particularly interested in how meaning is co-produced through the processes of expression and perception.