Born in Brisbane, Australia in 1984. Zoe Brand completed an Advanced Diploma in Jewellery and Object Design at Design Centre, Enmore, TAFE NSW – Sydney Institute. In 2014 Brand completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Gold and Silversmithing at the Australian National University. 2015 She finished her Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours at the same university. Brand has exhibited in many group shows in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Germay, France and Estonia and her work is held in a number of significant private collections. Brand was also recently the Director of the Personal Space Project, a gallery located in her bedroom.
Artist statement:
I make jewellery that uses jewellery archetypes, ready mades and text to explore the performative nature of jewellery as a device for communication. I am concerned with finding language that can describe both the object or the idea of the object, as well as the person who might wear the piece. My current body of work draws from readymade forms, more specifically from the plethora of signs and ephemera that are associated with commercial or retail situations and explores the way in which we negotiate commerce and transaction in these environments.
Zoe was selected to create the look and feel for DESIGN Canberra 2017. She started the process by looking at the past:
“The jumping off point for designing the look and feel for this year’s festival was the Shine Dome. I began reading through the 1959 opening speeches of this iconic building from 1959 that boast such optimistic and promising plans for the future. I was drawn towards language that felt as relevant now as it did then. ‘WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?’ A question with a multitude of applications and multitude of answers. Not only is it an important question to ask, but also an interesting one to answer within the framework of the DESIGN Canberra festival.”
@zbrandbrand
Zoe Brand is represented by Bilk Gallery.