Katherine James is an artist and jewellery maker based in Leeds. She is best known for her unique re-imaginings of armour, made by crafting chainmail into many different forms and materials to alter its symbolic values.
Katherine’s practice is engaged with contemporary discourse including issues of gender and mental health. She challenges herself to push the boundaries of her craft, constructing ever more complex and intricate designs, and incorporating new materials. Her pieces are often highly time-consuming to create and can take weeks and in some cases months to complete. Her expression is not bound by scale and can take the form of body adornments and large-scale sculpture.
Katherine’s professional practice was born out of her studies as a mature student in Art and Design. Her graduate piece, the Chainmail Veil, sparked her journey into sculpture and jewellery which she has continued to explore in-depth since. Most recently, Katherine’s focus has been to create a commercially viable collection of jewellery, routed in the symbolism and values of her larger work.
Katherine balances a symbiotic relationship between her sculpture and jewellery practice, where customers are often drawn in through the bold statement pieces which she creates less frequently, and then they buy more accessibly priced and “wearable” work.
