An Aberdeen silversmith will be exhibiting at Scotland’s biggest annual jewellery festival this year.
The Elements Festival – an annual celebration of gold, silver and jewellery – is staging its first event in the Granite City this weekend.
While most of this year’s festival is digital due to Covid, a series of pop-ups are taking place allowing people to meet some of the finest emerging and established designers and makers from the UK.
Aberdeen Art Gallery will be hosting four Scottish makers, including native Emma Louise Wilson.
After finding a love for enamelling at the age of 10, she studied silversmithing and jewellery making at Gray’s School of Art, before moving away from Aberdeen.
Two years ago, Ms Wilson returned to her home city and has since been creating work at her studio in Torry.
She is renowned for her fine silver and enamel jewellery, as well as hand raised bowls in fine silver or copper with enamel decoration.
Her designs are often inspired by Scotland’s dramatic skies and seascapes.
She said: “It’s lovely to be able to have an in-person event like this, especially with the opportunity to show at the art gallery – it’s an absolutely stunning venue.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting people and showing them not just my finished work, but something of the process that goes into it, like the sketches I make after walking in places like Aberdeen beach and how these inspire my designs.”
Festival showcases emerging and established Scottish makers
The art gallery will be hosting the festival on both Saturday and Sunday during opening hours.
Visitors will also be able to see jewellery created by three other makers and designers, including sculptor Ruth Leslie, Christina Hirst and Rhona McCallum.
The three do contemporary/sculptural, metal clay and recycled and ethical jewellery respectively.
Ebba Goring, chief executive of festival organisers at the Scottish Goldsmiths Trust, explained they are “delighted” to be holding a pop-up event in Aberdeen.
She said: “Elements has a well-deserved reputation for being the place to find some truly extraordinary work by some of the very finest emerging and established makers and designers.
“This year’s event blends the online and the in-person so that people can browse the gold, silver and jewellery at their leisure and in the way that suits them.”