South African jewellers turn still life into wearable art for Strauss & Co Woordfees exhibition and sale

25 Sep 2026

STELLENBOSCH – Fifteen local art jewellers have taken one of art’s oldest genres off the wall and made it wearable in the form of brooches, necklaces, rings and other pieces. Art Jewellery in Conversation with Still Life, the second collaboration between Strauss & Co and Stellenbosch University’s Creative Jewellery and Metal Design Division, brings together new works inspired by modern and contemporary still life, from Alexis Preller and Irma Stern to the humble banana.

On view at the Oude Leeskamer in Stellenbosch from 3 to 11 October during Woordfees, the show runs alongside the painting exhibition Anything but Static: A Selection of Modern and Contemporary Still Life, presented in partnership with Strauss & Co. The art jewellery is on offer in an online sale.

For Jill Van Dugteren, Head of the Decorative Arts and Design Department at Strauss & Co, the project also addresses a gap closer to home. “We have such phenomenal art jewellers in this country who are exhibiting internationally, winning awards and being collected by museums. Yet we don’t have many platforms for art jewellery here at home.”

The 15 participating jewellers span established names and a younger generation of makers, each approaching the brief in a very different way: Anika Lötter, Carine Terreblanche, Errico Cassar, Geraldine Fenn, Dr Joani Groenewald, Karien van Langelaar, Kitty Schneider, Lilly Friedlaender, Mariambibi Khan, Marlene De Beer, Nina Newman, Princess Ndala, Zoë Chowney, Xolani Mayikana and Eric Loubser.

From Preller to bananas

Eric Loubser takes the banana and runs with it: his pieces include a painted banana brooch, a carved wooden banana necklace finished in faux gold leaf and a silver banana ring. His references range from Andy Warhol and Paul Gauguin to Maurizio Cattelan’s famously divisive Comedian, using the everyday fruit to explore masculinity, sex and politics. “What I really like about jewellery is its ability to take the conversation to the viewer,” says Loubser.

Nina Newman approaches the brief very differently, responding directly to Alexis Preller’s 1948 Still Life with Lilies and Shell. Her three brooches reduce elements of the painting, including its flowers, shell, vase and book pages, to geometric forms, recreated in blackwood, silver, brass, garnets, coral, ceramic and shell. Newman describes the pieces as carrying the painting’s visual language “beyond the canvas and onto the body”.

For Princess Ndala, Jagan’s Two Candles becomes silver jewellery cast to resemble flowing candle wax. Drawing on the symbolic role of candles in African spiritual practices, Ndala describes the pieces as remaining still until they are “activated by the body”, where movement becomes an extension of ritual.

Elsewhere, Anika Lötter looks to Irma Stern’s 1935 Dahlias, sold by Strauss & Co for R13.725m earlier this month, for a brooch woven from wool and mohair that also recalls her grandmother’s habit of arranging dahlias around her home. Geraldine Fenn combines delicate china plates with porcelain doll limbs and eyes, while Joani Groenewald’s Pear Studies uses bruised, wounded and bandaged pears to explore care and vulnerability.

A still life can be observed on a wall; jewellery is worn, moved and lived with. For participating jeweller Carine Terreblanche, that distinction is key: “Where painting fixes a moment, jewellery mobilises it.”

The exhibition opens at the Oude Leeskamer at 3pm on 5 October, while Eric Loubser will join members of Stellenbosch University’s Creative Jewellery and Metal Design Division for a public talk at the Stadsaal at 1pm on 7 October.