Crystal Collection

The Luminous Archive

Gemma Donnellan

The idea of treasured possessions enduring long after their custodians have passed intrigues me. The resonant beauty of these cut crystal pieces has observed and been part of past generations’ lives, some now overlooked and lost, their relevance fading. In an age of disposable objects, their survival feels almost radical: a testament to beauty made to last.

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Crystal, like memory, stores energy, absorbing, reflecting, and transforming it across time. In my work, I explore this continuum: how objects become vessels for lineage, how light carries the essence of the past into the present.

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From childhood, crystal has spoken to me through its magic - sunlight fracturing through cut glass, creating rainbows and revealing the pure spectra of light.  This fascination with the alchemy of illumination informs my high-vibration, chromatically intense colour choices.

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The cropped vantage point in which I set these luxury items offers a contemporary lens to revive their artistry and draws the viewer inside their intricate soul. The complex surfaces create free-flowing patterns, finding the abstract within the still life. Using heightened pops of colour and layered paintwork, I capture both the seen and unseen energy within crystal’s reflective light and the ancestral wisdom embedded in its form.

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I romanticise these crystal objects as keepers of human experience, witness to everyday family life, celebrations, dramas, conversations around the dinner table, the unfolding of love and loss. Their facets have caught the same light that once illuminated generations before us, holding those moments in a silent, shimmering archive.

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In these artworks, this legacy of light comes alive in the interplay between crystal and illumination, those mesmerising instants when brilliance fractures into endless possibilities. Each is an archaeology of elegance, excavating beauty from a time when objects were crafted to be treasured. Each artwork carries inherited memories, honouring the hands that once cherished these vases, cake stands, drinking glasses, jewellery boxes, and decanters of fine wine or whiskey.

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The Crystal Collection speaks to our stories and our deep connection to ancestors, to beauty, to the transformative power of light. These luxe artworks channel the essence of crystal, inviting us to witness the magic that occurs when heritage meets contemporary vision and to value what endures, to slow down and to recognise that beauty, refracted through generations, becomes more brilliant in the present moment.