SIM LÜTTIN

Sim's work has a sense of calm and sophistication: the delicacy of the forms and the attention to detail are created in her signature silver and black colour scheme. Her distinctive aesthetic embraces her love of oxidised sterling silver and the carefully considered additions of alternative materials, such as photos, porcelain, glass and elements of plastic plants. She transforms the materials she works with into creative, poetic and sensitive pieces.

 

Since 2013, Sim has expanded her object-based practice to include photography, which she gathers and archives into monochromatic collections of ordinary moments captured day-to-day. These are carefully cropped, curated and archived, forming a rich source of research material to inform the development and creation of contemporary jewellery objects inspired by the often ubiquitous imagery.

 

Nostalgia and melancholy imbue Sim's work: it delves into everyday nuances and results in conceptually engaging and beautiful reflections. Sim challenges her self-imposed paradigms through her work by physically recording and recreating her daily experiences and environment, allowing her time to reflect on aspects of the human condition. 

 

 Sim has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria; Museum Bellerive, Zurich; Galerie Marzee, Netherlands; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem; Museum of Arts + Crafts, Itami; Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco; SoFA New York and Chicago with Charon Kransen Arts. She has presented seven solo shows in Australia and the USA. She has work in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Melbourne, and Gallerie Marzee in the Netherlands. 

 

Sim lives and works in Melbourne as a contemporary jeweller, craftsperson, and artist while working as a curator, arts manager and leader. A current Australia Council for the Arts Leadership Fellow, she is a Board Member of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria and a former Board Member at Craft. Sim has over 22 years of experience as a maker and curator, and she finds her inspiration in nature and objects located in the everyday. Sim is an exhibiting jeweller in Melbourne Now at NGV in 2023 and was formerly represented by Charon Kransen Arts, New York. 

 

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2021 saw the development of the project Transcend: a time-based photography and art jewellery installation that focused on nature's beauty as a counterbalance and provisional antidote to the impact of COVID-19 and other adverse local and global events. It was an online project presented through a contemporary craft lens that invited deep engagement and quiet repose.

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In 2023, Sim created Moment(o)s of Fragility: Loss/ XO, an art jewellery project that reflected current personal and social challenges. The collection was created for Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria in  March 2023.

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2024 sees the development of a new collection of work titled Undone, which echoes the marked impact of our vulnerability and, in balance, our strength. Ultimately, the collection acknowledges that life and beauty can be found each day, rediscovered by pausing, observing, reflecting, and acting, reminding us that we can reconnect with our humanity through small yet meaningful interventions.

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2020 began with the Victorian bushfires. Sim's role as a craftsperson seemed far removed from what Melbournians were experiencing. What to make and 'why' was at the forefront of her mind—after all, what was the point?  In response, Sim set herself the challenge of reconnecting with her immediate environment, the natural environment. Then Covid-19 hit, and her professional role at Arts Project Australia took over as the business operations completely flipped. Sim's craft practice took another turn, and her focus shifted to her piece-a-day photography and toward updating the website.

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2019 marked 20 years since Sim Luttin, Katrina Tyler, and Linda Hughes began their journey into the contemporary jewellery world. Each maker's collections have evolved year-on-year and are unique, refined, and recognisably their own. In September 2019, the trio presented installations of jewellery and objects across three spaces in the foyer of Sofitel Melbourne on Collins.

 

In 2018, Sim began a new decade-long photo and jewellery project, Memory Palace, which signals the beginning of a new decade-long, piece-a-day project that will be divided into ten chapters, each marking one year of a life lived. These curated observations don't attempt to capture the perfect moment in any day; they are an effort to pause, connect and reflect—even for the briefest moment.​

 

In 2017, Sim began a new collection of work titled Momentarily Here, which plots a unique course across time—small traces captured on her phone between night and day, home and work, travelling from one place to another. The 2017 piece-a-day project collection informed new work that Sim created for a two-person show with painter Kirrily Hammond titled Keepsake, presented at Bundoora Homestead in August 2017 as part of Radiant Pavilion.

 

In 2014, Sim started a new piece-a-day project titled It's Always Darkest Just Before Dawn, which she received an Australia Council Mid-Career New Work Grant to develop. The solo exhibition was presented at Gray Street Workshop in March 2015 and Melbourne in September 2015 as part of Radiant Pavilion.

 

In 2013, Sim exhibited work in Australia as well as internationally, including a solo exhibition, These Moments Existed, at Grunwald Gallery, USA (self-curated); Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor at Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery (curated by Kirsten Fitzpatrick); I Do. ... Do I? at Fuller Gallery, Bloomington (curated by Dr Nicole Jacquard); and Unnatural Acts in New Zealand (curated by Lauren Simeoni and Melinda Young).

 

In 2012, Sim launched her new website. She had work tour in various national and international exhibitions, including Unnatural Acts, Craft, Melbourne; InterGALACTIC, Dunedin Fine Art Center, Florida; Ontketend (Jewellery Unleashed!), Museum Bellerive, Zurich; and SoFA Chicago (represented by Charon Kransen), Chicago and New York.

 

In 2011, Sim earned an Australia Council ArtStart Grant to develop her art practice. This included developing a new website (Jan 2012 to Sep 2014) and assisting in setting up an external studio space in High St, Northcote (2011-2013). She then moved to a warehouse studio and started Studio 184 with a digital artist and printmaker in Christmas St, Fairfield (2013-2015).

 

In 2008, after presenting her solo exhibition The Temporary Nature of Things at Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University, Sim graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design under the tutelage of Professor Randy Long and Assistant Professor Dr Nicole Jacquard.

 

In May 2008, Sim moved back to Melbourne, Australia, after receiving an Australia Council Emerging Artist Grant to develop new work. She exhibited the collection alongside her Master's work in her solo exhibitions The Temporary Nature of Things at Pieces of Eight Gallery in Melbourne and Hint of a Memory at Metalab Gallery in Sydney, Australia.

 

In 2006, Sim received a scholarship to study her Master of Fine Arts in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design at the School of Fine Arts at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where she lived and worked for three years. During that time, Sim was awarded a Women’s Jewelry Association Student Scholarship, an Alma Eikerman Award for metalsmithing, as well as a Technical Assistant Scholarship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine to assist internationally recognised contemporary Australian jeweller Julie Blyfield.

 

In 2005, Sim completed a Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from the University of South Australia. The same year, she completed her Metals Associateship at JamFactory: Contemporary Craft and Design after working for two years in a collaborative environment, public art and commission projects, as well as expanding her jewellery practice under the tutelage of Creative Director Sue Lorraine. She also undertook an internship at Craft South under the mentorship of Anne Robertson.

 

In 2003, Sim graduated with a BFA with Distinction in Gold and Silversmithing from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Melbourne after four-and-a-half years of undergraduate study under Associate Professor Dr Robert Baines. Immediately after graduating, Sim moved to Adelaide in South Australia to undertake a Metals Associateship in the Career Development Scheme at JamFactory: Contemporary Craft and Design.