Stories about jewellery art are often susceptible to the use of bad puns. They sparkle, they're precious, they're worth their weight, and so forth.
And sure we also can't resist: Karl Fritsch and Lisa Walker truly are the golden couple of Aotearoa New Zealand jewellery art. Indeed they're now a dynasty: eldest child Max Walker is also now a jeweller.
Yet both of these artists subvert and play with inherited ideas of value and preciousness.
German-born goldsmith Karl Fritsch first established a jewellery workshop in Munich in 1994, and in 2006 received the prestigious international Françoise van den Bosch Award. Lisa went on to win it four years later.
Karl is known best for his rings, provocatively mixing so-called precious and cheap materials and the rough and the smooth in explosive clusters that are determinedly punk, bolshy but witty. Recently he's been combining lamps with kelp.
Lisa Walker meanwhile is one of this country's most celebrated jewellers, and her work was recognised with a survey exhibition at Te Papa in 2018 entitled I want to go to my bedroom but I can't be bothered. An Arts Laureate and Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Walker's work constantly questions conventions around what is wearable, beautiful and of value using second-hand and op shop materials.
Together as life and work partners Karl and Lisa moved from Germany to Aotearoa in 2009 and share studio space in an old Victorian workers cottage above Island Bay next to their house. Son Max's studio is just out the window.
Walker and Fritsch exhibit with dealers and in public exhibitions worldwide, but they're currently preparing for Nelson Jewellery Week, April 10 to 16, a significant national gathering of makers, exhibitions, and special events. It includes He momo, nā te whānau the second Aotearoa Jewellery Biennial at the Suter Art Gallery and Goodness, an exhibition of 26 Aotearoa jewellery artists curated by Karl, Lisa and Peter Deckers which they've just returned from Munich with as part of renowned event Schmuck.
Karl Fritsch is also showing in a collaboration with photographer Gavin Hipkins at Aratoi Museum in Masteron until early June, and with Seasons gallery in Auckland from the 2nd May.
