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Daphne Zepos

"I was born in 1945, in Brittany, where the French have always been very proud of their Celtic origins and have a distinct language and culture. I graduated in fine arts from the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in Le Mans and in Paris. Between 1970 and 1984 I was a freelance illustrator using airbrush techniques to create hyper-realist images. Among the campaigns I illustrated are those for Coca Cola and Renault.

"Out of personal interest I began to paint as an artist in 1983 and since then I have held numerous exhibitions and painted a large number of commissioned portraits, official and private ones, in Europe, United States of America, Middle East and Asia, where I live now.

"I reside in Bali, Indonesia, and a few years ago, while visiting the island of Lombok, I saw in a shop beautiful south sea pearls. The ones that attracted my attention were not the perfect round ones but rather the odd-shaped ones, called "baroque" south sea pearls. I bought them just for the pleasure of looking at them! A few months later, when I was intending to make a small sculpture with some twisted silver wires, it turned out to be the structure of a necklace on which I set the baroque south sea pearls. The following day I bought some blue topaz gems to add color to the necklace. This was my first one of a kind piece of jewelry.

"I draw inspiration from nature such as trees, leaves and flowers, as well as the shells and coral I find on the beach.

"What I intend to create are timeless pieces of jewelry that are beyond trends and fashion. In fact, I refer to my designs as wearable works of art.

"I work with semi-precious and precious stones, south sea pearls and freshwater pearls, which I set on sterling silver or gold. I am careful of creating a harmonious composition in my designs, so I take great care when choosing the shapes and colors of stones and combine them in order to achieve a sense of balance and harmony. For that matter, I like to work with silversmiths who are sensitive to the concept of harmony and balance that I create in a piece, and are able to follow very closely the raw prototype I give them. Working with Indonesian silversmiths is fulfilling, they seem to be doted with a unique talent, and I could not do my work without them.

"I have held, on an average, one jewelry exhibition since the time I first begun, in Jakarta, New Delhi, Hong Kong, and Athens."