Elena Elias is a multidisciplinary visual artist and jeweller currently based in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. Having graduated from the National Art School, Sydney, in 2016 and majoring in Sculpture, she then moved to Rome, undertaking a year-long apprenticeship with a jeweller and artist in the heart of the ancient city, before returning to Australia to continue her practice.
Her jewellery and art act as a form of connection and documentation for her various cultural identities. They are made as physical embodiments of stories - drawing on personal and ancient mythology, the notion of archetypes, psychology, poetry, and the rich landscape in which she creates to find visual expressions of shared human rhythms and the individual stories that separate them.
Each jewel is hand sculpted using ancient lost wax methods that have been employed for thousands of years. Often rough and imperfect and indented with fingerprints, they celebrate the story of each mark made.
Her jewels are not made as decorative ornamentation but act as talismans to protect and guide the wearer for various purposes - be they ancestral spirit studs whispering sage advice in listening ears or sapphire eyes to ward off evil.
