Jewelry enthusiasts are undoubtedly familiar with Cindy Chao, not only because her works have been permanently collected by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and have repeatedly set new hammer price records at global benchmark auctions, but also because she has shown the world that Chinese designers can be masters of jewelry design, and even lead new developments in contemporary jewelry art aesthetics.
Royal Butterfly Brooch
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA
Inducted into the collection in 2010
Ruby Butterfly Side-Flying Brooch
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France
Inducted into the collection in 2020
Ruby Peony Brooch
Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
Inducted into the collection in 2021
Today, jewelry art master Cindy Chao has adhered to her jewelry art philosophy for 20 years, and her brand has also reached the important milestone of its 20th anniversary. As we admire this year’s highly captivating new works, her passion for jewelry, her boldness, and her artistic mastery in integrating the language of nature continue to impress.
01
The Historical Evolution of Nature’s Language in Jewelry Culture
In the 1820s, naturalism began to replace neoclassicism as the popular style on both sides of the English Channel. Roses, cornflowers, wheat sheaves, and various types of leaves became mainstream elements in jewelry design.
Naturalism persisted throughout the 19th century, and even into the 1940s and 1950s of the 20th century, floral and plant motifs remained dominant themes.
Over two centuries, natural elements underwent repeated transformations:
- Composite plant bouquets (early Victorian era)
- Individual realistic plants (late Victorian era)
- Abstract plants (Arts and Crafts movement period)
- Figurative plants (Retro period)
- Conceptualized plants (1960s-80s)
These designs continuously evolved with the iteration of artistic styles, giving birth to diverse and splendid naturalistic jewelry.
02
Naturalistic Jewelry Art Expression in the New Era
While the naturalism of the past two centuries focused on artistic beauty in jewelry object expression, Cindy Chao has seamlessly blended Western jewelry art with Eastern narrative techniques of combining reality and illusion, establishing herself as a unique jewelry master.
For her 20th-anniversary series, Cindy Chao chose the Four Seasons as her creative core, drawing inspiration from leaves. She spent three seasons personally observing and experiencing hundreds of different leaf forms across spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She sought to find the most dynamic individual forms, using her unique creativity and expressiveness to vividly interpret the artistic heights of seasonal transitions through leaf shapes.
20th Anniversary Series Long Leaf Brooch
20th Anniversary Series Long Leaf Brooch
Spring leaves gradually unfurl from their curled state to full expansion. By summer solstice, the leaves are fully extended, with perfectly rendered thickness and undulating wrinkles at the edges, showcasing the robustness of water-filled leaves. In late summer and early autumn, the artist captures the golden surface of leaves under sunlight, crafting the radiant moment when light illuminates all things using yellow and white diamonds.
As the year ends, late autumn leaves are withered but their core structure remains proudly erect. Even winter leaves express an upright posture growing towards the sun. Some pieces transcend literal representation, creating a natural, carefree beauty through light, shadow, and color.
20th Anniversary Series Long Leaf Brooch
Cindy Chao extracts the essence of leaf contours and structures, starting with wax sculpting to transform the fleeting beauty of seasonal changes and life’s flow into miniature artworks. She leads 12 European master craftsmen with 30 years of experience in creating these pieces without regard to cost. They craft large, curved folds fully set with gemstones on titanium metal just 1.77mm thin.
The master craftsmen must work under 20 to 60 times magnification for the setting process. In the end, each gem-encrusted long leaf brooch weighs only 22 grams, presenting the liveliness and thinness of real leaves.
The 20th Anniversary Series Long Leaf Brooches represent the culmination of Cindy Chao’s 20 years of supreme craftsmanship and aesthetic style, and best interpret the artist’s current state of mind. The artist has infused all her accumulated skills and emotions into these pieces. With growing confidence in her craft and increasingly mature artistic prowess, she breaks the boundaries of diverse art forms, demonstrating an artistic metamorphosis from tangible to intangible, much like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.
03
A Journey of Naturalistic Practice Through Time
Artistic mastery is not achieved overnight. In 2004, Cindy Chao, a newcomer to the field, embarked on her artistic journey using jewelry as her medium, armed with a determined and passionate artistic vision.
As a female artist from the East, she has consistently broken traditions and challenged the pinnacle of the Western-dominated jewelry industry. Her works, characterized by their unique “architectural sense, sculptural quality, and vitality,” have sparked a revolution in jewelry art aesthetics, leading the integration and innovation of Eastern and Western art, and promoting the fusion and inheritance of diverse world cultures.
From breaking the boundaries between jewelry and art, challenging the heights of craftsmanship aesthetics, breaking down cultural barriers between East and West, to integrating diverse art forms, pushing boundaries has been Cindy Chao’s unwavering commitment. For 20 years, she has embraced a creative philosophy that transcends time, constantly reinventing herself.
Her artistic aesthetic style has been gradually shaped through repeated “uncompromising” breakthroughs and “wholehearted” creations, even creating and leading an entire artistic period.
Jewelry artist Cindy Chao has always had a deep affection for the dragonfly as an inspiration. If butterflies represent artistic metamorphosis, dragonflies symbolize her persistence and courage over the past 20 years. Dragonflies are the kings of flying insects, capable of reaching speeds of 50 to 100 kilometers per hour, appearing fragile yet incredibly powerful.
Cindy Chao has similarly achieved unprecedented global influence in the world of art jewelry over 20 years. The dragonfly pieces in the 20th-anniversary series now evolve with the artist’s state of mind, opening a new chapter for the brand’s future in a more minimalist yet resilient form.
The concept of breaking frameworks and merging East and West is fully embodied in the dragonfly brooch. It transcends boundaries of East and West, gender, and forms of expression, maintaining a profound Eastern core while integrating Western culture, exuding androgynous beauty. Cindy Chao infuses the work with the artistic control of freedom and confidence accumulated over the past 20 years, endowing it with a strong core and independent personality.
-About CINDY CHAO The Art Jewel-
CINDY CHAO The Art Jewel was founded in 2004 by jewelry artist Cindy Chao. It is internationally renowned for jewelry creations with unique “architectural sense, sculptural quality, and vitality,” deeply loved by art jewelry collectors worldwide.
The artistic aesthetic creativity and exquisite craftsmanship in her works break the boundary between jewelry and art, recognized by international authoritative academic institutions as “the creative paradigm of top jewelry in the 21st century.” The brand has been repeatedly invited to participate in prestigious international art fairs such as the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris, TEFAF, and Masterpiece London.
Her works have achieved remarkable results at international auctions. It is also the only Chinese art jewelry brand with works collected by three major international museums: the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the USA, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK, establishing its brand status as “museum-collected art jewelry.”
Cindy Chao: A Naturalist’s Passion in Jeweled Artistry
Tweet
Further Reading
