Jamjaras Suchiva scavenges Bangkok to create art. He rummages through obscure stalls in Chatuchak Market for fos­sils, old ivory, buffalo horns and leather. In China Town, shops specializing in engine parts provide rubber tubing and sheets of black oxidized copper. He loves the street dedicated entirely to plastic – a source of material as well as inspiration. For bronze, he found a specialty shop across the river in Thonburi.

“That’s what I love about Bangkok,” he says. “You ask around and find strange shops full of strange things, things you didn’t even know existed. You wonder how these shops survive, but it’s wonder­ful for me, for my jewellery and even for interior design.”

Unassuming in a striped t-shirt, Jamjaras has an innocent face which masks both his age and his creativity. He calls his work “jewellery”, but makes no mistake about it – this is art. His bold pieces juxtapose old-world glamour with cutting edge urban design. He decorates necklaces of rubber tubing with gold-flake traditionally reserved for Buddhist temples, pairs bronze with buffalo horns and combines oxidised copper with elephant bones.

“I like to combine natural and artificial materials,” says Jamjaras. “I like texture and form, playing around with unconventional things and mixing materials you don’t normally see together.”

Jamjaras has extended this philosophy of combining the unexpected by showcasing his jewellery on 60 by 50 centimetre photographs of a woman in various poses. The portraits are in black and white, with hints of industrial colour – copper, metallic green and pink. The jewellery adds an in­triguing three dimensional element, as though the woman is about the leap from the photographs into the room.

“I took hundreds of photos in this series and then I matched them with the jewellery,” he says. “The form interacts with the lighting and the colour. They go together. The shape of the body matches the shape of the jewellery.”

Jamjaras used to photograph models wearing his jewellery, but as he says, “It became repetitive. I wanted to find a new way to document my work.” Collaborating with a film director friend, they came up with the concept of pairing portraits with jewellery, creating an art form in and of itself. He now sells his jewellery along with the accompanying portrait, offering his clients the most ex­clusive of products; a work of art you can wear to a cocktail party.

This evolution is typical of Jamjaras’ journey as an artist. The grandson of a restaurant-owner and the son of an interior designer, he grew up in a creative environment and studied architecture at the London Metropolitan Univer­sity in England, but found the scholastic environment stifling, because “you don’t get to be yourself.” To unwind in his spare time, he began applying his new design skills to jewellery, experimenting with silver, beads and semi­precious stones. When he graduated two years ago at the age of twenty-five, he returned to Bangkok to explore his creativity and his capabilities.

“It’s the lifestyle I like,” he says, explaining how it felt to return home after so many years abroad. “People live in a community and everyone knows each other. There are opportunities – you can make things happen. People are willing to support different kinds of art, willing to experiment.” Jamjaras believes in experimentation. “You need a place to explore, to be crazy, and to push your thinking. The more you do, the more you find yourself and discover what you can do.”

Jamjaras’ journey of discovery led him from the conventional -silver and stones – to the unconventional; oxidised copper and ivory. Along the way, he refined his use of colour, from brightly painted beads to the black, white and burnished brown of his most recent work. He has completed five collec­tions, developing concepts around which he designs each unique piece.

“I’m drawn to geometry and simplicity,” he says. “I focus on form and tex­ture -the less the better. It’s harder to make it work because you have to get everything right, especially the proportion.” The geometric shapes of Jamjaras’ art-jewellery are deceptively simple; some of his designs are so complex, he makes architectural drawings of them.

This fusion of jewellery, architecture and photography soon caught the eye of a German art enthusiast who arranged an exhibition of Jamjaras’ work in Berlin in September 2007. The Art House was packed with people curious about the Asian designer. He sold several pieces but the best part of the ex­perience for Jamjaras – who has a passion for travel, having explored Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey – was Berlin itself.

“Berlin is up and coming,” he says and pauses thoughtfully, thinking how best to describe what he likes about Berlin. “On the surface it’s like Bangkok
-it’s not so beautiful. You have to dig a bit to get inside. It’s more of an expe­rience than a picture. The music and art scenes are very fresh. You can see that everyone is trying to experiment, to develop. It’s a bit rough around the edges and not too commercial.”

These days, Jamjaras is busy with his sixth collection, while also working for his family’s interior design company. His ambition is to become an archi­tect, designing buildings in Bangkok which pay homage to traditional Thai architecture. Not that he plans to abandon his jewellery, his love of which is obvious as he walks from piece to piece, explaining where he found the different materials – the rubber and plastic from Chinatown, the fossils and old ivory from Chatuchak Market, the bronze from Thonburi.

“Who buys this stuff?” he asks, fiddling with an elephant bone dangling alongside a square piece of black oxidised copper, strung on a bronze chain.
The necklace is displayed on a photograph of a woman’s silhouette pushing against a silvery canvass, as though she is struggling to grasp that exquisite piece of jewellery.

“They sell funny things,” he says, a gleam in his eye. “I don’t know who buys this stuff.”

Thankfully, Jamjaras does.

Mu Mu Art House is a café and gallery space that is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the premier locations for Bangkok’s thriving art scene.
106/1 Soi Sribumpen, Yen Akard Road 1 Tel: 081 286 96761 11am to 11pm

Published by Traversing The Orient Magazine. You want to make an online travel business? Please go to www.web.com.

The Art of Jewellery