Welsh-born jewellery designer and maker Donna Barry graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2001. There she developed her own customised technique of fusion. Donna creates silver textured sheets inspired by repetition in nature and architectural shapes and patterns.
By arranging and overlapping these shapes and then fusing and forming, Donna’s finished pieces resemble beautiful elements of flora and fauna. Choosing to develop her work onto a larger scale, Donna stayed on at the Jewellery & Silversmithing department at Edinburgh to do a Post Graduate Diploma in 2002. During this time Donna designed and made a collection of silverware alongside her jewellery.
Working with silver and gold and a carefully chosen colour palette of semi-precious stones, Donna’s beautiful bespoke pieces such as her cluster neckpieces are made up of continuous floral and bud clusters. Other pieces are constructed of fine sheet layers that glisten and often move when handled or worn.
Donna’s vocation as a florist for five years provided her with a plethora of shapes and textures to draw inspiration from. Donna works intuitvely with her chosen materials allowing shapes and forms to develop through the making process.
