Joy BC, Olivia Rose

Joy BC, Olivia Rose

THE SHOPHOUSE is pleased to present Lovers Eye, featuring British artist and Goldsmith Joy BC and British Analogue photographer Olivia Rose at KG+. Taking influence from an 18th-century craze by the same name, where miniature portraits of single eyes were exchanged by lovers as jewellery.

Eye miniatures were a curious but brief anomaly in miniature painting that came into fashion at the end of the 18th century. An extremely intense manifestation of an already emotionally charged art, apparently an attempt to capture ‘the window of the soul’, the supposed reflection of a person’s most intimate thoughts and feelings. Often, as here, the result was a compelling piece of jewellery. Sometimes, however, the result was merely unpleasantly anatomical or disturbingly uncanny. The notion accompanying this very short lived fad was that the eye would be recognizable only to the recipient and could therefore be worn publicly keeping the lover’s identity a secret.

Joy BC and Olivia Rose will collaborate on a series of artworks, spanning between jewelleries, eye portraits, installation and multimedia artworks. A limited edition of photographic prints will be on view.