Fading memories and a perceptible transience are constant companions in Nicole Beck’s work. The structures and surface patterns are reminiscent of old wallpaper and domestic embellishments such as cushions, and the worn colours and barely recognisable patterns convey a sense of dissolution. Her recent work plays with surface and simple, reduced forms inflated to create­ a vacuum that pushes the metal to the limit of its capacity. The enamelled surfaces are worked in a process of application and removal until she is satisfied with the effect.

Nicole Beck was born in Munich in 1973 and studied for a dental engineering apprenticeship before becoming an apprentice goldsmith at the Staatliche Berufsfachschule für Glas und Schmuck in Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz. She studied jewellery and everyday objects at Hochschule Pforzheim and then at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich under the tutelage of Otto Künzli. Nicole’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the Marzee Collection and the Alice and Louis Koch Collection in Zurich.