Jean-Yves Nantel

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Born in Montreal,1949.

I have been working and producing as a self-taught jeweller since the beginning of the eighties. My artistic interest started when I was studying art in secondary school with artist and teacher brother Jérome Paradis in Montreal. I later found the artistic expression I was looking for in my jewellery making. I now work in complicity with my wife Odette, in Otterburn Park, Québec, on the South Shore of Montreal.
Honoured for the totality of my work by the prestigious Jean-Marie Gauvreau prize of the Quebec Craft Council in 1996, I later won an award of excellence in a joint contest of the Metal Arts Guild of Ontario and the Québec Craft Council in 1998. The following year, I was endowed with a research grant by the Canada Council for the Arts. My work was exhibited in Paris, New-York, Chicago, Auckland N.Z. and is currently showing in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Victoria, Salt Spring Island BC, and Tobermory.

The materials I use are sterling silver and titanium. With this fantastic metal I am able to produce different tints using the anodization technique. To produce these colors I work as an artist might using high revolution tools in a freehand manner similar to a pen or brush, coupling the tints with the abrasions to capture the reflecting light. This technology, coupled with different construction methods, enables me to create and explore forms in a freer and more expressive manner. I constantly search for new and innovative ways to assemble and weld one of the most difficult metals to work with, titanium. But the fantastic creative rewards of working with such a material are countless. After a lifetime of working with metal, I still find it technically and artistically stimulating and extremely exciting.

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