Rainer Beneke
~ When Planets Align
~ Our first jewellery show in our history ~ and it’s an absolute ripper! ~ Dunedin based Rainer Beneke has delivered a magical show ~ inspired by the work of Iain Cheesman
Rainer is a goldsmith, having trained in Dunedin in the early 1990’s with Blair Smith and at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art. He’s always had a fascination for metals, particularly silver and gold and the ductile properties of these noble metals make him see them as ‘liquid’ – and he likes to ‘push’ them into place (with a hammer and anvil, of course).
Rainer admires poets and writers for their ability to string words together, so that they ‘sing’, and has been using lyrics onto his jewellery for decades, selecting the most suitable metal, silver, the colour of the moon, or gold for the glow of the sun, and deciding on a shape that suits the words, are always part of his response. When stamping poems letter by letter, the words often form a new rhythm for him, while also indenting these words to life.
For this show he chose poems by Iain Cheesman. They met half a lifetime ago and this isn’t the first time Rainer has used his poetry in his jewellery (one piece in this show dates back to 2004). All other pieces are made this year as a direct response to Ian’s more recent poems.
Visceral, elegant, and uncompromisingly unique – the planets have indeed aligned in the gallery for this show of joyful luminosity coupled with master craftsmanship.
~ Downloads for this show