TONY DRAWBRIDGE
Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Exhibitor | March & December 2024
New Zealand jeweller and artist Tony Drawbridge has been creating jewellery since 1989. As a young child, he spent hours watching his mother, artist Tanya Ashken, working in her silversmithing studio in their garden, before making his first piece, a pendant, at age 14. Having discovered his own passion for the art of jewellery making, he began experimenting with recycled waste materials from the aluminium and acrylic plastic industries. Almost four decades later, this sustainable approach to crafting wearable art from discarded materials remains at the heart of his creative process. Tony’s current work involves the disassembly of various electronic appliances, mining them for interesting components for his jewellery. Every piece created is a one-of-a-kind, meticulously handcrafted to be fun, distinctive and evoke curiosity.
“My work makes use of materials others typically regard as waste. A magpie by nature, I’ve collected the discarded off-cuts of plastics and metals for over 30 years. Initially it was a way to craft jewellery with minimal expense, but this has become an integral part of my work and enabled me to create art with a sustainability ethos – the essence of Re: Once Re:claimed, these discarded materials are transformed or Re:purposed, and given a new or second ‘life’ as body adornment.”
