LOCAL ARTISTKathlyn-Sue Allan
I am passionate about handcrafting jewellery through the use of traditional techniques such as hand carving and hand engraving in metal, as well as wax carving and lost-wax-casting.
Kathlyn-Sue Allan is a Swellendam based contemporary jewellery designer who works mainly in gold, silver, platinum, gemstones, and on occasion, found or repurposed objects and materials.
She received a Bachelor of Technology in Jewellery Design and Manufacture from Durban University of Technology from 2008-2012, before working in Johannesburg for four years as a jewellery designer and manufacturer for Sirkel Jewellery Design. In 2017 she moved to Swellendam in the Western Cape to begin working on her own line of jewellery and started her company “Author by Kathlyn Allan.”
Kathlyn is passionate about handcrafting jewellery through the use of traditional techniques such as hand carving and hand engraving in metal, as well as wax carving and lost-wax-casting. In an industry in which these skills and techniques are fast being lost to the use of computer-aided design and mass production, she hopes to preserve the old world integrity, sentiment and charm of traditional jewellery with a modern interpretation.
Most of her jewellery takes the form of wearable sculptural figures and motifs, both invented and historical, touching on many themes- some of which include heritage, history and nostalgia; cultural, personal and gender identity; mythology and folklore; and challenging the notion, especially in a largely corporate commercial industry, of what makes an object “precious” or “valuable”.
Kathlyn is interested in how the arts can be used to connect and empower people, and endeavours to elevate jewellery to the status and public perception of “art” through the exploration of complex subject matter in the form of narrative wearable artworks. Through working closely with clients to design unique pieces, she became more and more aware of how personal a vehicle for meaning jewellery can be as a visual art form. The relationship of jewellery to the body and its constant proximity makes it powerful as a physical and visual queue to evoke response, whether to the wearer or to others who see it. The nature of jewellery being passed down as an heirloom or gifted between two people adds to it the ability to pass down its ever-building narrative and sentiments between generations.
