Grey CLASP two fingers ring by Marina Stanimirovic

French artist-designer Marina Stanimirovic was born in Colombes on the north-western border of Paris in 1988. She embarked on her training with a foundation course in Applied Arts at Lycée Saint Genevieve in Paris, before specializing in jewelry making, completing the vocational baccalaureate (BMA) at Ecole Boulle, Lycée Nicolas Flamel, also in Paris. She then moved to Lyon, where she completed a Bachelor’s degree in contemporary art jewelry from the SEPR, a vocational training center, before moving to London in 2011. There, Stanimirovic was accepted to the Royal College of Art, finally attaining a Master’s degree in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork, and Jewellery in 2013. Stanimirovic founded her studio later that year in London, where she remained for four years. In late 2017, she relocated her studio to Berlin.

Stanimirovic approaches jewelry design with an expanded definition of the field. Much of her work could perhaps better be described as wearable design or art, due to the ways in which it challenges the accepted boundaries of the medium. The designer herself describes her work as ascribing to a minimalist aesthetic, particularly in regard to the conscious care and discerning judgment with which she selects each color or material that is incorporated into a piece. There are, however, also clear conceptual—and even, sometimes industrial—influences in her work. The Flat Necklace (2015), for example, repurposes a chunky rubber bathroom seal into a statement necklace with the addition of a minute brass line threading through the rather industrial looking rubber. The necklace is hinged, offering an unexpectedly quirky injection. Indeed, many of Stanimirovic’s pieces alchemize seemingly ordinary materials into elegant wearable artworks through cleverly subtle additions and subtractions; thoughtful manipulations of the viewer’s expectations that expand our understanding of what jewelry can be. She designs and creates wearable objects, as well as sculptures and sound, without distinguishing between her approach to these different mediums.

Stanimirovic’s work has been shown at London Design Week and at the Southbank Center in London (2013), Milan Design Week (2014), at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (2015), and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2015), amongst others. She has also presented sound pieces at a number of locations around Europe and been commissioned by cultural festivals and institutions, including the Canterbury Christ Church University (2017).