Gold, anodized titanium, diamonds, moonstone. Artists’ signature inscribed on the back side.
Epic Jewellery continues its collaboration with the artist Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov. Their new project, The Circle of Life explores transformations and the never-ending motion of natural life.
The collection, which would be presented throughout the year at exhibitions and other events in New York, Rome, Bangkok, Hongkong and Moscow, will include several unique pieces.
The first is the "Cocoon", an anodized titanium pendant with diamonds and a moonstone.
Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov explains: «The main motif of this piece is the shape of the Hypolimnas Bolina butterfly's cocoon, symbolizing a transformation, a metamorphosis. The cocoon is a shelter, protecting something fragile and vulnerable».
Blue is both the color of the wings of the butterfly that will eventually be born from the cocoon and one of Fedotov-Fedorov's favorite colors to work with. The pendant references the artist's earlier project, The Moth and The Bat Flying to the Light, parts of which were shot at a tropical zoo in Switzerland. The artist recreated the largest European forest populated by butterflies. He spent several days in the empty zoo, which was closed due to the COVID pandemic, observing every stage of butterflies' transformation.
«The shell of the pendant conducts the mysterious magic of a butterfly cocoon, where everything is still, waiting for the moment something new emerges, — says Fedotov-Fedorov. — It's not just a piece of jewellery, it houses something hidden, something insusceptible. A metamorphosis is happening inside this blue cocoon, like a chemical reaction, waiting to be exposed to the outside world».
Titanium is one of Epic Jewellery's favored materials, which very few jewellers in the world know how to work with. It's used in most of the brand's collections and was the main theme of the «Sirens of Titan» collection.
«One of the most difficult parts of working on the "Cocoon" was turning Ilya's sketch into a three-dimensional model, — says Epic's creative director Anna Minakova, — It took us many attempts to find the perfect balance, keeping the "spikes" thin, but not thin enough to be prickly, to keep the shape natural, but not too naturalistic. The choice of gems, on the other hand, was obvious from the beginning. I saw the first sketches and immediately decided it should be diamonds and moonstones».
