exploring identity, memory and connection.

Katja is a Melbourne based jewellery artist, exploring identity, memory and connection.

She employs traditional jewellery and sculpture techniques in conjunction with life drawing to create a connection between wearer and object.

Whilst studying Visual Arts at Swinburne University of Technology, she expanded on her knowledge of the multidisciplinary world of art that influences her approach to materials and technique.

Unexpected influences, like that of imagery within film, sparked her want to create wearable art in the form of jewellery. From salvaged wood of her great grandmother’s walnut tree, she carved her first piece of jewellery; a signet ring that talks of the tactile, wearable sculptures, imbued with sensory memory and time. 

After experimenting with carving hard wood jewellery in 2012, Katja expanded her skill base to include precious metals by completing a Certificate II in Jewellery Manufacture at NMIT (2014) and subsequently an Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design at Melbourne Polytechnic (2016), which allowed her to marry traditional hand skills with artistic concepts.

She recently completed her studies with the Gemmological Association of Australia, receiving a Diploma in Gemmology to further her interest jewellery and sentimentality with the intricacies of the internal world of gemstones.

Katja works out of her Melbourne studio translating stories and creating memories for all.

She acknowledges that she is living and working on stolen land.