This exhibition rounds off our series of short-run shows profiling innovative approaches to making and exhibiting jewellery. It was proceeded by Riffing off Brown Eyes Blue by Sofia Tekela-Smith and Mid-Sentence by Jasmine Te Hira.

Jack Hadley has taken the provocation of a rotating jewellery exhibition verbatim, inventing a trio of new gear-powered works that actually do go round and round.

The works draw on two years of research into mobile display mechanisms, spurred on by Hadley’s interest in the ways movement is used in creative and commercial environments to capture interest. Like an air dancer in front of a car dealership or a maneki-neko (beckoning cat) waving at you from the counter as you pay, the gesticulation of Round Round is both playful and instructive. It’s wiggling to draw you in. 

From the Cemac Foyer, these works gesture to the world beyond, hoping to persuade people into the gallery. Rendered in aluminium and set with jewels, the moving objects function as lures. Hadley employs these like a fisherman might, mounting them to mesmerise through repetitive motion. Their eye-catching design nods to the way jewellery adorns the body: a quip on what we’re trying to catch when donning an accessory.

Hadley’s turn to jewellery making is recent. In Round Round, he tests how objects of adornment might continue to perform, even when not on the body.

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Jack Hadley is an artist and educator based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with an MFA in 2020. Recently, he participated in the HANDSHAKE jewellery mentorship programme working with renowned jeweller Karl Frisch.