GILLY LANGTON - JEWELLER

Gilly Langton is a contemporary jewellery designer based in the remote Highland village of Plockton on the West Coast of Scotland. Gilly has been creating her bold sterling silver and elastic jewellery since 1997, selling and exhibiting in galleries, museums and fairs all over the world.

With a background in traditional silversmithing & jewellery, Gilly’s preference to making is very much hand on, manipulating metals through the fabrication of forms, usually architecturally inspired shapes, hand tooling marks upon the metal to create surface & texture,  combining the strength of the metal with the softness of hand dyed elastic, creating jewellery pieces with a unique colour palette.

The use of elastic became apart of the jewellery workshop in 2001, after a desire to incorporate colour into a predominately silver jewellery practise.  A research & development residency in 2010 at DJCAD gained Gilly the time to create the skills to develop new dyeing processes which would take her practise forward, developing a new body of work, which is well received on an International platform, for mixed materials in contemporary art jewellery.

The use of colour creates a joyful quality to each piece, whether it be subtle shades or vibrant colours, the breadth of palette allows Gilly to respond to any commission of colour.

Inspired by Gilly’s nautical surroundings, engaging daily with the changing hues upon the seascapes & landscapes,  each colour is a direct response to living and working in the small Highland fishing village of Plockton. Nautical architectural equipment scattered along the harbour, creates a starting point for each piece, using photography, sketchbook & sampling to document, research & develop every new piece of work.