Artist Statement
Rob Bondgren

Since prehistoric times, men and women have adorned various parts of their bodies with objects. Used as symbols of status or to protect against harm, the making, owning, and wearing of jewelry is serious business. Simple and sophisticated, gaudy and ostentatious, natural or manmade, jewelry often takes on forms laden with both biological and sexual connotations. Fetishising these objects gives them power and transforms them from highly-prized but ultimately useless objects into pseudo-magical charms often used in ritualistic ceremonies from marriage to burial. My current project includes works in a variety of media that question our obsessions with objects, the power we give to symbols, the nature of our desires and how easily we are impressed with appearances.