Atoll Hoops in Sterling Silver Dark Sand (Satin Matte Finish)

925 Sterling Silver, Rhodium

1.5 × 0.5

Jewelry, for me, is sculpture scaled to the body. It is intimate, enduring, and alive with meaning beyond adornment. My work begins with the sea and the natural forms it leaves behind: shells, coral, nets, fragments caught between permanence and dissolution. Cast directly from found objects or sculpted through digital and hand-built processes, these pieces become relics that hold memory and gesture toward the future.
I am drawn to jewelry’s ability to exist outside of linear time. Each work feels both ancient and futuristic, an artifact that could have surfaced from the ocean floor or from a world not yet imagined. In this tension, my practice explores how the body can carry histories forward while also projecting new mythologies.
Working in silver, gold, bronze, and gemstones, I translate the textures and rhythms of water into forms that feel alive when worn. My aim is not decoration, but resonance: pieces that carry memory, transformation, and continuity, reminding us of our inseparability from the natural world.

Artist Bio:
Elle Irwin is a contemporary artist based in Key West, Florida, working at the intersection of sculpture and jewelry. Informed by her background in fine art, her practice explores material transformation and the tension between permanence and change. Rooted in her lifelong connection to the coastal world, her work reimagines organic form through contemporary design and process. Her pieces have been exhibited internationally in Milan and Munich, with an upcoming presentation in London. Irwin was a finalist in NYC Jewelry Week’s recent USA Jewelry Tour competition.