Artwork information

Eléna Gee is a leading contemporary jeweller who helped shape a distinctly local aesthetic in New Zealand body adornment using materials and techniques that reflect the region’s natural environment and cultural context in the Pacific. In 1988, she was one of only two women, alongside Jenny Pattrick, who featured in the landmark exhibition Bone Stone Shell: New Jewellery New Zealand, which toured Australia and Asia. Curator John Edgar noted that although the monetary value of bone, stone, and shell is low, the exhibition aimed to highlight their cultural and aesthetic significance.

Born in Auckland, Gee developed her craft skills early, learning how to work with shells from her grandmother and to do metalwork in her father's workshop. She often collected materials from the beach, finding that shells and pebbles held memories of earlier times as well as emitting a deep connection to nature. Gee described her process as making ‘memories wearable’, altering found materials only slightly – perhaps drilling a hole or adding a cord so the pieces retain their natural character. Her jewellery is known for its simplicity and elegance, celebrating the inherent beauty of materials like pāua shell and smooth stones, with a sense of freshness and informality.

Boxed Set comprises a selection of shells: including pāua, junonia, and sea snails; and lengths of cotton, encased within an aluminium box. The lid of the box is lexan (a type of polycarbonate) and provides a transparent cover through which to view the collection of objects. Gee writes of the origins of this piece ‘I was at a friend’s place and noticed she had a pāua shell with trinkets in it. I started making shell boxes with sets of jewellery in them. Then I went to a scrap metal merchant and bought anything that looked suitable’.1 In the Bone Stone Shell: New Jewellery New Zealand catalogue, Gee recalled, ‘Among the metal debris and industrial flotsam and jetsam I keep, there should be accidental box forms. I will arrange the memories in these boxes … Then I will make the memories wearable, altering them as little as is necessary, a hole here, a cord there, just enough for convenience; as with memories’.

1 Eléna Gee provided written notes to Julia Waite, January 2025.