Jim Adams

Jim Adams is a self-employed artist/craftsman who works from a home based studio in New Plymouth creating contemporary jewellery and applied art, including wall/table lamps, as well as three- dimensional wall pieces. Jim has been producing artworks intermittently over a number of years, the earlier ones being mainly in wood, as carvings.

In 1997 he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, majoring in Jewellery, at Otago Polytechnic School of Art, Dunedin. This cultivated an added interest in other materials/media, including metal, bone, shell, gemstones and exotic woods.
Jim makes contemporary jewellery and three-dimensional work because he enjoys working with the various materials, exploring the inherent colour and qualities of each one, and combining them into an integrated piece. This includes a love of the quality of wood; the way it can be worked and shaped, the natural patterns in its colour and grain.

He finds that the alternation between small-scale jewellery pieces and larger sculptural work encourages an energetic interchange of creative ideas.
Also the attributes of one material can be applied to another as in the case of the wood apparently bending in a woven form, i.e. “wood weave”, in conjunction with metal tubes. Most of the wood used in the work is recycled and re-lives when it is shaped, both physically and from the imagination, to take on a new ‘life’.

The recent series of wall lamps show a return to a previous interest in the use of light and the reflective quality of mirror, integrated with pierced and carved designs in metal/wood, to produce illuminated patterns. Jim’s work is inspired by nature and natural patterns primarily; the cosmos; and his own affinity with circles, curves and geometry.