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Enric Majoral. Expanded jewellery: a journey through four decades of the vital and creative process of Majoral’s contemporary jewellery
The personal and singular language that Enric Majoral has developed within the field of contemporary jewellery has become a benchmark, creating a symbiosis between craftsmanship, design and art. .
Contemporary jewellery emerging from a lifestyle, a way of perceiving the world and the exploration of jewellery as an expressive means in all its facets. The creative vocation of Enric Majoral, without limitations or complexes, has led him to combine craftsmanship, design and art in the creation of jewellery with its own language and characteristic.
Precisely, with the desire of expressing the work of a leading figure of contemporary jewellery, the Museu del Disseny, with the collaboration of the A-FAD, has organised the exhibition titled “Enric Majoral. Expanded Jewellery”. Present in the Disseny Hub in Barcelona from the 22nd of September to the 27th of November 2022, the exhibition aims to present the vital and creative process of Enric Majoral and that of the Majoral – Ballester family by means of an exhibition that expresses the evolution of their body of work through learning and daily work. The exhibition brings together 159 pieces distributed in eight fields that, avoiding a chronological order, instead emphasises the fundamental elements in order to understand an individual style and language.
Enric’s jewellery –and its emotive charge – drink from the artistic and conceptual development of contemporary jewellery, exploring and passing the very limits of jewellery work itself. The Catalan jeweller has developed his work with the conviction that each material is capable of speaking for itself, adopting natural forms and enhancing their unique characteristics. A body of work that, after four decades, has become rich, diverse and complex and an icon of Mediterranean contemporary jewellery.
Formentera: a vital and creative habitat
Enric’s work cannot be conceived without the influence of the natural and cultural environment in its creative process. Among all the places in the world, the island of Formentera possesses a special meaning. “In the seventies, there was a spectacular silence in Formentera that allowed your imagination to run free”, states Enric Majoral. Enric Majoral arrived at the island accompanied by his partner, Dolors Ballester. Captivated by the nature and the stimuli that Formentera offered, the artistic and professional project of Majoral combined with his family and life project.
The workshop: the place where the jewellery comes to life
In his early creative days, Enric Majoral fitted out a small workshop in his home, which became the space of inspiration and creation of Catalan jewellery. The combination of intuition, creativity and skill enabled the Catalan jeweller to develop his own language through his jewellery work. For Enric Majoral the workshop has always been a space for allowing creativity to blossom, going far beyond technique, developing his own processes and testing the capacity of the materials to speak for themselves.
The shop - workshop: a new concept to bring jewellery closer
In 1984, Majoral boosted the La Mola art fair and created his first shop – workshop, a space with direct sales to the public. The essence of this concept came from Enric Majoral’s childhood.
“My father was an artisan in leather, he had a workshop-shop where he sold directly to the public. When I sought refuge I hid myself away. I have reproduced this model in some way”, he says.
The shop-workshop of La Mola was followed by other commercial openings in Formentera, Ibiza and Barcelona. The arrival of Majoral shops popularised and democratised the cultural phenomenon of contemporary jewellery among a public that began to appreciate an alternative proposal within the jewellery sector. The project that had begun in a small workshop had become a family business made up of Enric Majoral, Dolors Ballester, Roc Majoral and Savina Majoral. A company that aims to be an intimate space where you can discover the Majoral universe, full of creativity, emotion and in consonance with the social, natural and cultural world that surrounds it.
‘Expanded jewellery as a maximum expression of the Majoral philosophy
The idea of expanded creativity runs through the work of Enric Majoral. This desire for expansion comes precisely from the intention of going beyond the tradition, methods, techniques and even materials in the field of jewellery. The insatiable search around the volume and space of the jewellery has enabled him to give life to designs that establish dynamic dialogues between the body, the jewellery and space. For Enric Majoral the capacity of expression of an item of jewellery is not complete until it inhabits a human body, adopting different expressions according to the person that wears it.
The expanded jewellery of Majoral aims, from a creative and humble perspective, to rediscover the possibilities of jewellery when it expands, breaking limits through creativity.
