Warwick Freeman – Pinakothek der Moderne, Germany

Warwick Freeman’s emblematic jewelry pursues meaning. Across five decades the New Zealand jeweller has built a lexicon of signs: from the cultural symbolism of the hook and the star to the heart redrawn in the volcanic scoria of Rangitoto island.  When worn, his jewelry communicates something of who we are and how we have lived. Throughout his career Freeman has never tired of exploring what it means to make jewelry in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Freeman’s work reflects a depth of thinking about the construction of identity that weaves together the big with the small. He has explored forms found in the detritus of daily life, the influence of New Zealand’s colonization, and the rich geology of the land, all of which have provided him with an abundant supply of materials and narratives to draw from.

Hook Hand Heart Star includes key installation works, emblematic groupings and a number of suites of emblems, described by Freeman as Sentences. Composed of arrangements of individual works, these groupings evidence Freeman’s practice as always in motion, building on itself iteratively over many years.

The four nouns that form the title of this exhibition are inspired by Freeman’s first stand-alone grouping of emblems from 1987, the four-piece ‘poem’, Fern Fish Feather Rose. This significant work catalyzed Freeman’s thinking about the power of assembling recognizable forms that could communicate their stories in lieu of words.