Geometry, architectural and botanical structures are amongst the themes that inform Silke Trekel’s jewellery. In metal and porcelain, she explores contrast: severity and diversity, challenge and controlled calm, harmony and irritation. More recently, she has taken inspiration from the culture of Japan and the reverence for the grace and simplicity of everyday objects. The principle of harmony and the small irritant that, like a grain of sand agitating a pearl in an oyster, give objects their soul, are what draw her to this philosophy.

Born in Rostock in Germany in 1969, Silke began her goldsmiths’ training at VEB Ostsee-Schmuck Ribnitz-Damgarten, before studying in Dorothea Prühl’s class at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. Silke has been a visiting lecturer at schools including the Royal College of Art in London and Nagoya University of Arts in Japan. She has won several awards, including first prize from Italy’s Fondazione Cominelli in 2014. Silke continues to live and work in Halle.