Morag Myerscough turns installations into jewellery in latest collaboration

Morag Myerscough has partnered with jewellery brand Tatty Devine to produce a collection of brooches, earrings and necklaces inspired by her recent work.

Established in London in 1999 by Chelsea School of Art graduates Harriet Vine and Rosie Wolfenden, Tatty Devine is a label best known for statement pieces and bold colours and shapes.

For this reason, the brand says it has a “natural affiliation” with Myerscough’s work, which similarly uses bright colours and graphics in large scale installations, drawings and structures. The brand adds it and Myerscough also share a “like minded focus on happiness, making positive changes and making work for everyone”.

“It is like wearing models of my structures on your body”

In keeping with Myerscough’s installations, each piece of jewellery is made from what she refers to as her “material of choice”: FSC certified birch plywood. It is then painted using a mix of digital and hand painting techniques. Each piece is handmade in Kent by an all-women team, according to Tatty Devine.

It has been an exercise in playing with scale, according to the designer, since her work is known for large-scale pieces usually and the results of this project are much smaller.

“When I am working on a project I see huge structures in my head but I draw everything in small scale, always thinking about the space they will end up in,” says Myerscough. “This has been a fantastic experience as the jewellery is so small it is like wearing models of my structures on your body.”

Inspired by recent work

Each piece contains recognisable references to Myerscough’s past work. Some contain elements lifted directly from previous pieces, while others use the same typefaces, colours and motifs.

The Eye See necklace, for example, features a black and white eye, taken from the designers Temple of Curiosity installation at AfrikaBurn music festival. The Agape necklace uses the colourful concentric circles found on the Temple of Agape, which Myerscough designed for the 2014 Festival of Love on London’s Southbank.

Meanwhile the Love brooch and New Now necklace both use typography taken from Myerscough’s recent murals: Our Superheroes We Love You in Leeds and A New Now in Milan respectively.

“Why reinvent the wheel”

Having been a fan and collector of Tatty Devine jewellery for some time, Myerscough says she “could not believe her luck” when Harriet Vine and Rosie Wolfenden got in touch about a collaboration.

She says the process was a collaborative one that felt “so natural and joyful”, and involved lots of discussion.

“I have accumulated so much content over the years in my work, patterns, colours, words – so why reinvent the wheel when it was there to be used,” she says. “I am used to seeing my work at this small size and in my head I visualise them in spaces and actual size, so to actually wear them as well felt like magic.”