Liana Pattihis

Jewellery maker

©Liana Pattihis

Embracing the imperfect

Liana makes intricate jewellery and decorative objects
She loves repurposing unwanted or damaged items
Her signature technique is enamelling on chain

After working as an interior designer for years (having studied art and design and interior design in the UK), Liana Pattihis needed a new challenge. With an innate love for jewellery and making things by hand, she attended a jewellery making course at Central Saint Martins and life drawing classes at Barnet College in order to build her portfolio, before finally studying jewellery design at Middlesex University under Caroline Broadhead. For the past 13 years, she’s been working with enamel on chain, making pieces that echo her Greek and Cypriot roots. Her latest work often focuses on turning unwanted gifts and damaged items into pieces of jewellery and ornaments. “Like in the Japanese art of Kintsugi, by healing the scars of the flawed and the unwanted, we grant them a new life, making them purposeful and desirable again.”

Interview

©Liana Pattihis

©Liana Pattihis

Where did you first showcase your pieces?: My first collection was shown in Playing with Fire, a major exhibition of contemporary UK enamelling developed by The Devon Guild of Craftsmen, the University of the West of England and the British Society of Enamellers. Entitled Coral Red, the collection was inspired by the 19th-century headdress tepelikia.
What role does enamel play in your craft?: The inspiration of my work is rooted in the past but the outcome is contemporary. Even though I use enamel as a medium, I don’t employ classic enamelling techniques. My pieces challenge and push any perceived boundaries of what enamelled jewellery might be.
How has the philosophy of Kintsugi influenced your work?: The art of Kintsugi perceives an object’s cracks as mere symbols of an event that happened in its life; once mended, the flaws become part of its new identity. In my collection To Mend My Broken Heart, I used epoxy along with enamelled and oxidised chains – silver or gold – to highlight the cracks and embrace the imperfect.
What's particularly remarkable about your jewellery?: My pieces cannot be preconceived. There are no precise drawings of what exactly they will look like when completed, only rough sketches. Essentially, each enamelled piece creates itself organically in the kiln. This way, all items are unique and can’t be replicated.

Liana Pattihis is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2007