Chasing Clouds 2024

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Jonathon Zalakos employs motifs of cloud-like abstraction, utilising silver inlay on steel to create representational relief work as externalised models of the unconscious in a modern context. Building on his goldsmithing practice, Jonathon presents a sample of works created as the result of receiving the 2022 Craft + Design Canberra CAPO Award. The award enabled the artist to purchase hammer forming equipment which he used to explore high relief chasing and repousse - metalworking techniques that involve carefully beating both sides of metal sheet in a bowl of pitch.

Jonathon Zalakos is a contemporary jewellery and object maker based in Canberra, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. Jonathon seeks to integrate contemporary philosophy with traditional goldsmithing materials and techniques through his practice. He has a particular focus on the psychological influence of the designed world and considers how designers can work toward manifesting alternative, ecologically conscientious ways of being.