Connecting worlds
- Nenad produces jewellery based on ecological principles
- Jewellery helps him to understand how personality is linked to the environment
- He strives to emphasise interconnections between the body and outer space
Nenad Roban graduated in jewellery design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. At the beginning of the 1990s, he founded his own jewellery workshop, working in various materials. He teaches Jewellery design, Body and Space Objects, and Design: History and Modernity at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka, Croatia. In his artistic statement, Nenad says “The causal and ensuing link between art, nature and society in jewellery media is realised in a very direct way. One of the prerequisites is the production of artistic jewellery according to an ecologically based concept. I believe that, given the relationship with nature, society is in the adjustment period to many of the visible changes that we feel directly and almost daily on the body."
Discover his work
INTERVIEW
Jewellery of the 1960s was neglected as an artform and therefore a very interesting field for research. Also, I like to work on tables with smaller scale objects. I started doing it in 1966, while thinking what can I use to put on the body that would send a message to society.
In the early 1990s, I opened a fully equipped workshop. I had smaller inadequate spaces before that. The first products I made were silver brooches that questioned the role of jewellery in the field of contemporary design and art at the time.
Everyday life, nature, micro and macro world, human existence on planet Earth. But also people, for whom I make unique pieces. In my work, tradition is a springboard for innovation.
Exploring the role of jewellery as a means of communication. The ability to express on a body with different materials in a small format – all that other designers need more space and more material for.
