Gilded Pear Gallery is thrilled to present an inaugural concurrent exhibition, Polyphonous 2021: Mimetic Lives II, a 2-person display of new jewelry works by local artists, Satomi Kawai and Jillian Moore. The collective, Polyphonous, was founded by Professor Jivan Astfalck, Rachel Darbourne and Laura Bradshaw-Heap, loosely grouped through connections at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham, England, but members are from multiple countries- including U.S. based artists Satomi Kawai and Jillian Moore. Established in 2018, Polyphonous was formed in collaboration with Studio Gabi Green in Munich’s West End with the intent to drive visitors to a localized hive during Munich Jewellery Week; one of many prominent features of the program. Both in the wake and the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 has offered the opportunity to safely connect with the most renowned European jewellery event from across the globe, online, and in print with Current Obsession. Artists and venues throughout the world unravel the dilemma to present significant and innovative displays of work in the field of contemporary jewelry at mass scale. This exhibition effectively serves as an in-person experience for the residents of the American Midwest and links virtually to other physical and virtual celebrations around the world. In 2006, Kawai and Moore exhibited “Mimetic of Life”, a display of graduate work from the University of Iowa’s Fine Arts program. That show, unknowingly, initiated a long-standing partnership of presenting work together. This marks a 15th anniversary for the two, in a way, and reunites them in an exclusively shared exhibition for the first time in more than a decade. “Mimetic Lives II” portrays the artists’ unique parallels in jewelry fashion form: earrings, brooches, rings and the like. Mimesis (meaning to mimic or imitate), is a perfect one-word summary of their creative inspirations and helps define the conversation between their work over the years. The individual lines of work stand alone with clear material polarity. They however borrow certain motifs inherent to their abstracted ideations rooted in biology and natural elements. Through our own physical reflection, we are presented with a flipped perspective on a familiar and known image. This type of mirroring can be observed in the paired styles of the artists’ works: glossy, amorphous, and prismatic; matte, achromatic, and structured. The same characteristics however remain integral and constant: repetitive pattern, arduous detail, and the uncanny attraction to something that looks memorable. Each artist pulls from natural wonders in our world to fabricate a small token for adornment.