News Release
WARSAW — Warsaw’s contemporary art gallery, Atelier, will indirectly pay homage to the former jewelry store that once occupied that space on Center Street for several decades.
The gallery will do so by highlighting works on paper featuring Crown
nd ornament in its final solo exhibition of 2024, scheduled to run from Nov. 15 through Dec. 28.
“GoldiLocks” is an exhibition of works by upstate New York-based artist Amelia Toelke.
The show includes sixteen paintings in 24k gold leaf and gouache on paper and one three-dimensional arched wall installation rendered in layered mirrored acrylic forms.
Toelke creates exquisite paintings and wall sculptures inspired by jewelry.
Through faceted gems, dangling charms, and gold-leafed chains, Toelke explores the human desire to adorn oneself and the idea of jewelry as “personal signage.”
Toelke is fascinated by her subject matter.
Jewelry, she said, “reveals not only our aesthetic tastes but also performs complex social functions like indicating marriage status, our religious views, our values, or our wealth. The innate human impulse to adorn oneself frames how I understand the world, our past and our present,” she said in a news release.
“In my work, I borrow and remix the symbols and motifs inherent to adornment and signage, building a visual language that expresses the
profound relationship between identity, culture, and adornment. In doing so, I highlight the deep connection between jewelry and those who wear it, showing how we use objects to tell stories about ourselves,” she said.
Evocative titles like “Treasure,” “Amulet,” “Fortune” and “Ice Cold” attest to the power and significance we attach to jewelry. The desire to adorn oneself meaningfully permeates Toelke’s work.
In curating Atelier’s sixth exhibition of 2024, Grandon says she was drawn to Toelke’s iconography and her ability to give her subject both the weight of gem and metal but also the feel and sound of draping chain and dangling charms.
“The work is quite graphic and bold, yet it evokes movement and delicacy. The work is simply enchanting.”
Grandon says she was particularly interested in an exhibition involving jewelry due to the history of the building in which Atelierresides at 104 East Center Street in downtown Warsaw.
The historical building was home to Crownover Jewelry, a downtown Warsaw institution for decades.
The jewelry store closed in 2013 and the building sat vacant until it was renovated in 2022 to become the art gallery.
“People came to various shows and told me different stories and memories of the building and I wanted to do something to honor that, and also to generate more conversions about the history of downtown,” Grandon said.
“I always pick artists that I’m excited about and artwork that I think is beautiful and interesting and intellectual but for me, it’s always a bonus if there is a tie-in that resonates with people,” Gandon said.
Much like we adorn our bodies with meaning-imbued jewelry, Grandon notes that art collectors have a similar fueling passion.
“Collectors of art seek to adorn their homes with symbols and motifs that reflect their identity as an individual, a couple or a family. An art collection evolves over time and becomes the expression of the collector’s personal narrative. It’s a visual record of a life.”
GoldiLocks is a fairytale show perfectly suited to the holiday season.
“Amelia is exploring the profound connection between identity and ornament,” Grandon says. “I hope visitors experience the shimmer and shine of GoldiLocks and find that for them, it’s just right.”
GoldiLocks opens Nov. 15 and runs through Dec. 28. Atelier’s hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
