Robert Baines

Robert Baines is one of Australia’s foremost artist goldsmiths and a researcher of archaeometallurgy and Bronze Age gold works. With a career spanning more than 30 years, his work is based around the historical context of jewellery, often referencing notions of the fake, the phony and the copy that have been part of jewellery making and collecting throughout the ages.

This neckpiece, from the series, Hey True Blue (John Williamson, 1986), continues Robert’s experimentation with complex linear wire constructions. The wire work has powdercoated componentry and extending intensity of colour with the continuing intervention of pink. “Pink is calming, warm and comforting.”

Australian Design Centre’s exhibition Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft Robert Baines toured nationally from 2010 to 2013.

Read more about Robert Baines here.

Listen to the podcast interview on Object: Stories of Craft and Design with Robert Baines here.

Forget Me Not Blue, Neckpiece, 2014
silver, electroplate, powdercoat, lacquer
$15,000

Image top: Robert Baines, Forget me not Blue (detail), 2014. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist