Ballistic Heat Map

Titanium post & sterling and silicon earnut clutch

6.4cm x 6.4cm x 1cm

2.5 x 2.5 x 0.39 in

I developed this work from material tests produced for my recent solo exhibition, OH WELL, WHATEVER, NEVERMIND, presented at Brooklyn Metal Works. Through a material-specific treatment of titanium, I explored forms that address the machinery of violence—and the apathy that has allowed it to become ordinary. Through references to body armor, ballistic imagery, targeting devices, and mourning traditions, I examined the uneasy relationship between protection and injury, adornment and vulnerability, witnessing and inaction.

Working primarily with titanium—some of which I sourced from a regional manufacturer of weapons and aircraft that deploy those weapons—I employed the intimate language of jewelry and the body to consider how violence became normalized. The work asks what it meant to protect, enhance, and repair the body within a culture that manufactured its destruction—and what it means to look away.

Artist Bio:
Kerianne Quick is a Southern Californian, craftsperson, and Professor of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University. Quick received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Applied Design from SDSU, Master of Fine Arts in Metal from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and worked as a research assistant for Dutch designer Gijs Bakker in Amsterdam. Highlights from their exhibition record include the Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Museo Franz Mayer (CDMX), the National Museum for Women in the Arts (D.C.), Salon del Mobile (Milan), and Design Week Amsterdam. Quick’s work is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Netherlands Design Museum (Stedelijk). Quick’s research is rooted in exploring craft as cultural phenomena, with an emphasis on material specificity. They have received numerous grants including a Kinley Fellowship and NEA Visual Arts Grant. Quick co-founded and edited the zine/journal CRAFT DESERT with professor Adam John Manley (SDSU), does curatorial projects as Secret Identity Projects with professor Jess Tolbert (UTEP), and is the co-author of the (Affective) Craft Manifesto.