Seliena Coyle

Golden Fleece Award

Seliena Coyle is a jewellery designer, curator and educator from Derry, Northern Ireland. She has a BDes in Jewellery & Silversmithing from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, an MFA in Metalsmithing & Jewellery Design from Indiana University, and has completed two DCCOI Skills & Design courses. Her work attempts to construct a new contemporary Irish aesthetic.

Marrying traditional jewellery-making techniques with new and ancient technologies, her work is a comment on the much-changed political and economic context of modern Ireland. It is reflective of a uniquely Irish landscape, utilising materials indigenous to the country, like bog oak. The resulting pieces, informed by research into Bronze Age artefacts in national collections, engendered a body of work that is contemplative without relying on sentimentality or cliché. Ancient jewellery types, like torcs, lunnula, sun discs and ear spools, continue to influence the form and function of her work. She aims to create more flexible interpretations of what is wearable while experimenting with new technologies, like 3D printing, and sculptural forms.

Seliena Coyle applied for a Golden Fleece Award to enable her to undertake a career break from her day job that would facilitate an extended period of research and development towards a new body of work, and to attend the 2015 SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) conference in Boston, USA.