ELENI ZOLIA

Eleni Zolia, born and raised in Piraeus, Greece, found her creative flair early in her young years.

Already experimenting with many  crafts, she finally gained solid silversmithing technique foundations at the Mokume Institute in Athens, which she attended while studying Chemistry at the University of Athens. In Mokume her sculptural attitude towards jewellery was apparent. Wanting to develop herself and her skills even more, she came to England to study the MA Jewellery, Silverversmithing and Related Products, at Birmingham City University, where she gained a lot of experience in various materials other than metal. She took her sculptural tendency a step further by making objects that are wearable sculptures and that barely function as jewellery in the traditional sense.  Then she realised that her talent in sculpture is what drove her to the jewellery sector in the first place.

So once she founded Zolia Jewellery in 2014, she decided to combine both and create fully functional jewellery that can be seen as pieces of sculpture themselves. Indeed, she calls herself a mainly sculptor, apart from jewellery maker and designer.

Her distinctive style derives from her early influences from architecture and constructivism and her later inspirations from futurism and biomorphism. The edges and the angles come from the first, while the fluid curves come from the second. Her big interest in Pop Art add the colourful stones and details.

Eleni never stops developing herself and her work, so she keeps experimenting in combining various materials in her pieces and in making large scale pieces of sculpture.