par Valérie Bui | 1 Mar 2020 | Creations
[vc_row css= ».vc_custom_1652882134483{padding-top: 3% !important;} »][vc_column][vc_single_image image= »7718″ img_size= » » add_caption= »yes »][vc_empty_space][mkdf_section_title type= »standard » position= » » title_tag= »h3″ disable_break_words= »no » title= »Carrying what you put on the wall, on a pedestal, changes the paradigms. »][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]In her admiration for African culture, Valérie Bui shares myths and materials on totem jewelry. She gives them back their meaning, brings them the mystery of the material. Authentic beads, selected for their history, link the past to the present and fertilize the jewel thus created. She activates the object by this transfer which is rooted in a true knowledge beyond the aesthetic appeal. The intention is to anchor her talisman, her lucky charm, on a tradition made alive. The jewel is perceived in the aura of the culture that surrounds it. This perception is all the more vivid as it is staged and presented during exhibitions in resonance with ancient fetishes. There is no more innocence to wear, the object and the body are activated.
Collected for twenty years, the ancient beads have become a signature. Valérie Bui adds to them the symbols of metaphysical transhumance: the parakeet is an intercessor through its gift of speech, the kingfisher is a navigator between two worlds, between the air and the water. Reduced to their skulls alone, the quality of workmanship and intention transcend the jewel. And in this given power, the ring is entrusted with your secrets; Valerie Bui follows a ritual, closes the beak with a lock, forces the bird to keep the wish until it is fulfilled and the magic happens. In the African tradition, the sculpture locked by padlocks is named with a command: « shut your mouth ».
To be in body puts you in echo, in « penetrance » and gives strength in this lightness of the habit, of the everydayness of the carried. The body becomes a partner in this projection. Carrying in the reference to the past object its imaginary and the meaning that each one places there, it activates the memory of it: of reported, it becomes personal. The power of Valérie Bui’s jewels is to incorporate this timelessness, to put in connection with ourselves, our anxieties, our fears and our hopes, in what is vital: energy.
Michèle Heuzé
Historian of jewelry
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Jewelry and voodoo: a fascinating inspiration
Evocation of a memory, a dream, a journey, wearing a jewel is never insignificant. Thanks to their ornaments, the peoples of the world tell us about their culture and their beliefs. In Valérie Bui’s collection, it is the voodoo universe that is highlighted, through visual quotations and symbols to discover or rediscover. The skull of a kingfisher or that of a parakeet becomes precious by the work of silver, one of the metals whose value has been recognized by history for thousands of years. Their beaks are sometimes maintained by a chain or closed by a padlock… a way to keep for oneself a wish or a secret that the jewel would contain, as do the fetishists of the voodoo world. Added here and there is an ancient glass bead, fashioned by the famous Venetian glass masters, artisans who have been working in the lagoon for hundreds of years, on the island of Murano, and whose colored glass pieces traveled as far as Africa during past centuries.
All these elements, carrying meaning, are mounted on pure and simple lines: fine silver chains support the almost magical charge of what Valerie Bui calls her « fetish jewelry ». If the skull of the kingfisher is delicately placed on a cuff of geometric structure, it is as if to better highlight the value of the message it supports.
Presented in conjunction with an African art gallery, these jewels remind us that an ornament is part of a story, that of the culture that created or inspired it, but also that of the person who will wear it and perhaps give it a different meaning. A confrontation between ancient voodoo art and contemporary jewels that happily forces us to redefine what jewelry is, full of complex and fascinating symbols, even keeping a part of mystery.
Gislain Aucremanne
Professor at the School of Jewelry Arts (with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels) Art Historian, Specialist in Ancient Jewels
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par Valérie Bui | 19 Nov 2019 | Creations
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If the starting point of my first Tila collection is the Voodoo cult in Africa, I realized that my pieces can evoke universes sometimes very far from my first inspiration. For example, the skull of the great kingfisher suggests a Venetian mask to some and the padlock necklace is considered surreal and mysterious to others.
To begin, several people around me chose a piece from my first collection and wrote a few lines about what it evokes for them.
Thanks to Nathalie, David, Andrea and Agnès who opened the way…
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Petite Perruche ring between 2 fingers by Nathalie Sokierka
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« My choice fell on this magnificent ring « Between 2 fingers » which evokes in my eyes a really original version of « You and Me », jewels that I particularly like.
The composition of this piece reminds me of the Vanities of the eighteenth century by the meticulous representation, of the silver parakeet skull, adorned with a faceted garnet with the opposite an antique glass bead from Venice, and these tones seem to resurrect the baroque evenings of the city dear to Casanova. »
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The Little Kingfisher necklace by David Meyer
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« As an attentive spectator of the Voodoo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, I discovered in September 2011 the objects collected by Jacques Kerchache.
The magic of disenchantment, that of the spell, was already operating in me and for a long time I attached to all things the virtues of occlusions and those expansive that they could contain.
I linked spell cast or exorcised in a ceremonial mechanism, I applied it from then on in imagination to the world I was living with.
A dream where causalities and spells are one and the same, after all.
It is in Valérie Bui’s jewels that I became familiar with this idea.
Enchain to padlock the wish to the beak to literally nail him the verb, to tie money to the orbit blindly.
An incantatory jewel with noble reflections of silver and vermeil beak where the organic of a gleaming skull dialogues with the cult patina with the effects of smoke and blood (black Fancy of Venice); a rare multicoloured pearl touches in corolla a magic sphere.
A votive jewel, a love spell?
Valerie Bui proposes an object without charges other than its impeccable plasticity and its combinatorial beauty, a heterogeneous assembly of which one already knows that it operates the charm of which the carrier charges it. «
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The Little Kingfisher cuff by Andrea Guinez
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« From earth to sky
You do not say a word
Voluptuous breath
Enchanting star
Chagrined innocence
You go away with her
And your secret ».
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Multi-symbol necklace by Agnès Lefebvre
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« There is no art for art’s sake in Africa. Artists do not sign their works.
African artistic productions always respond to a need for protection against the vicissitudes of life around the major themes of human existence: to promote fertility in a very broad sense that goes from procreation to harvest, to counter disease and death, to attract the favor of the ancestors so that they fight together with the living.
The voodoo cult relays these universal themes through fetishes. The strength of the intentions of the fetishists emanates from these pieces whose energy is matched only by the will to keep the profane away. Valérie Bui’s « jewel-fetishes » take on this life impulse. They contain this protective power thanks to the use of the strong symbols of the voodoo: the skull of bird, the padlock which locks the vow to the jewel, the extraordinary stones found at random but whose characteristic is associated with a supernatural magnetism…
All these symbols are present in Valérie Bui’s work and transmit a spiritual force to the precious metal. They are the evocation of the powers at work which go from a wingbeat to telluric and galactic movements. They materialize the limits between the tangible world and the one that goes beyond reason and consciousness. »
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par Valérie Bui | 24 Oct 2019 | Creations
I would like to share with you the emotion I feel for the ancient beads found in West Africa. I have been collecting them for more than twenty years now. Since they are sought after by many collectors, they are increasingly rare and often damaged. When I mention the notion of bead, it refers to any small object that can be put on and therefore worn as a necklace, ornament... or integrated into a set of jewels.
A story of encounters and discoveries
It was on African markets and in Dakar in particular that I discovered the world of beads. Having lived with my husband in Senegal for five years in the course of our professional careers, I had the opportunity to establish friendly relationships with an experienced collector and art dealer, David, who introduced me to their diversity and history. Their aesthetics and the moments of humanity they conveyed immediately touched me. Inspired by these beads and encouraged by David, I started creating some necklaces and collecting a wide variety of beads. This devouring passion has since then known no interruption since back in Paris I have always continued to frequent the African markets, colorful and shimmering, and to hunt for beads during my travels including outside the African continent. The quest for beads is a theme in each of my travels and a pretext for encounters and discoveries. As the beads have travelled, sometimes very far from their place of manufacture, it is always a moment of intense emotion when I find beads identical to those found in Africa in other countries such as India or Thailand, or simply when visiting museums.
Each discovery is a magic moment that remains in my memory. During a trip in the Mauritanian desert, with my husband, we met nomads on the road. One of the women presented me with an ancient bead, a single bead, very beautiful, made of glass, square shaped, which was probably produced in the Middle East (Syria or Persia) between the 10th and 15th centuries. What a surprise in the middle of the desert to discover such a magnificent bead, wich was in perfect condition!
A unique variety and beauty
All the ancient African beads, in their infinite variety, are likely to touch me: the raw material, patina and sensuality of the shapes and materials of Neolithic beads; the colors, brilliance, fragility and resistance of glass beads (whether from Italy, Bohemia, Holland or Africa); the softness of touch, organic shapes and colors ranging from yellow to brown and amber; the energy released by the red coral beads, gullied, brought back by the Portuguese in the 15th century and used by craftsmen in the Kingdom of Benin to make sumptuous clothes and facings for their chiefs and dignitaries; the richness of motifs and texture of Islamic glass beads in the Middle East...
Sensitive to their aesthetics, history and symbolism, I attach the utmost
importance to their authenticity and quality, which give them their full value.
In my creations, I am committed to respecting the history of these beads and
sublimating their beauty through a contemporary aesthetic.
par Valérie Bui | 14 Oct 2019 | Creations
When I imagine a new creation, I combine ideas, materials, colors and emotions as I feel them.
The ancient sculptures of African voodoo and their unconventional aesthetics inspired me for the Tila collection. With this first collection, I want to transmit the energy and raw power that emerge from these sculptures. I like the idea of accumulating elements, mixing elements, mixing materials, the part of mystery and magic that are part of strong ancestral beliefs.
I associate themes with materials and the whole must be coherent. The Tila collection includes ancient glass beads made in Venice mainly between the 17th and 19th centuries. The choice of beads is naturally reflected both in terms of meaning and aesthetics. These beads have been traded in Africa, particularly in countries where the Voodoo cult is still practiced. Their refined aesthetics bring a baroque side that contrasts with the raw aspect of the skulls and blackened silver. The parakeet and kingfisher skulls, which respect the real size of the birds, could be found in a curiosity cabinet.
For my creations, which are large scale jewelry sculptures, I prefer silver. I appreciate it. the simplicity of this metal, its color which can be oxidized and take infinite shades of gray, of blue and pink. It will also get a patina with time. Some creations include a gold element or gold-plated which brings warmth in terms of colors and a more precious side. With ancient beads or gems, my rather raw and contemporary creations are transported in the world of jewellery with delicacy, all in subtlety.
To make a new model, I start with sketches or models. I then work with French craftsmen, each excelling in their own speciality. We make prototypes together because experimentation is very important in my work. I also intervene at each step. The creations are entirely handmade using traditional methods. The skulls of parakeets and kingfishers from the Tila collection have thus been made using the lost-wax casting technique. At certain stages of the manufacturing process, I also use technologies such as laser welding to avoid damaging old glass beads that are not neither glued nor heated due to their fragility.
If each model can then find particular variations, the authenticity of the materials used and the method of manufacture guarantee the uniqueness of each piece of jewellery.
This first collection is fully in line with my universe, the creation of contemporary and timeless jewelry, with a strong personality, jewelry imbued with strength and mystery, jewelry for escape.
