Glasgow School of Design Silversmithing & Jewellery

RUI LIU (She/Her)

The essential quality of dreams is, according to Sigmund Freud, a form of wish-fulfilment, the ‘dynamic unconscious’ is expansive and develops while we sleep, allowing us to imagine and visualise our very deepest desires. During the pandemic and the enforced lockdown, socially remote from friends and family, these dream states became powerful signifiers of longing and imagining. This series of jewellery designs are the result of an exploration of ‘dream works’, as Freud named them, fabricated by the sub-conscious, heightened in isolation. The pieces incorporate colorful, everyday materials and metals which create stable structures and volume, but they also express aspects of Surrealist, dreamlike evanescence and uncanny qualities, all of which are explored in psychoanalytic theory. Each piece is connected to dreams as another way of thinking and processing; abstracted in material form, these objects can be traced back to what seems like a dream world fantasy in response to an intolerable reality. However, this is not wholly true, as times and meanings merged during those days and practice became indeterminate. Slowly, the dream works were captured, fixed in these small representations of a period mired by invisible external forces, such that even Surrealist artists could hardly imagine.

Contact
Liu991109@foxmail.com
R.Liu1@student.gsa.ac.uk
@_lui_______
Works
A DREAMER: the bracelet#1
A DREAMER: the bracelet#2
A DREAMER: the brooch
A DREAMER: the earring
A DREAMER: the necklace
A DREAMER: the ring#1
A DREAMER: the ring#2
A DREAMER: the shoulder piece

A DREAMER: the bracelet#1

I’m locked in the dream.

Bracelet

I'm locked

Material: Brass, acrylic, 3D Pen Size: 10 x 8 x 7 cm
Bracelet

I'm locked

Material: Brass, acrylic, 3D Pen Size: 10 x 8 x 7 cm

A DREAMER: the bracelet#2

Two similar dreams are like twins. Similar but different.

Bracelet

Twins

Material: copper, brass, acrylic, 3D pen Size: 12 x 8 x8 cm(left), 10 x 8 x 7 cm(right), 30 x 2 x 2cm(chain
Bracelet

Twins

Material: copper, brass, acrylic, 3D pen Size: 12 x 8 x8 cm(left), 10 x 8 x 7 cm(right), 30 x 2 x 2cm(chain

A DREAMER: the brooch

We dance, we laugh, we party in the dream.

Brooch

Dream with the crowd

Material: copper, stainless steel, acrylic, cold enamel, 3D pen Size: 13 x 11 x 5 cm
Brooch

Dream with the crowd

Material: copper, stainless steel, acrylic, cold enamel, 3D pen Size: 13 x 11 x 5 cm

A DREAMER: the earring

The colour maze will never end.

Earring

Color maze

Material: copper, silver, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 6.5 x 9 x 1 cm 8 x 10 x 1 cm
Earring

Color maze

Material: copper, silver, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 6.5 x 9 x 1 cm 8 x 10 x 1 cm

A DREAMER: the necklace

Something/someone that you want desperately, but are they hiding from you? In the end, you and the thing/person was circling around.

Necklace

The seeker

Material: copper, brass, silver, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 10 x 45 x 3cm
Necklace

The seeker

Material: copper, brass, silver, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 10 x 45 x 3cm

A DREAMER: the ring#1

Climbing the tree,

Climbing the mountain,

Climbing the rebar and building…

Ring

Climbing

Material: Copper, fabric Size: 7 x 7 x 6 cm
Ring

Climbing

Material: Copper, fabric Size: 7 x 7 x 6 cm

A DREAMER: the ring#2

How does it look like when you throw liquid paint onto the wall?

 

Ring

Radial

Material: copper, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 9 x 12 x 6 cm
Ring

Radial

Material: copper, acrylic, 3D pen, cold enamel Size: 9 x 12 x 6 cm

A DREAMER: the shoulder piece

What is fatal poison means to you?

Shoulder piece

Poison

Material: copper, acrylic, cold enamel, 3D pen Size: 15 x 20 x 16 cm
Shoulder piece

Poison

Material: copper, acrylic, cold enamel, 3D pen Size: 15 x 20 x 16 cm