Melis Agabigum, a Michigan native, is a multi-disciplinary artist primarily working in jewelry/metals, 3D fabrication, and sculptural textiles. Provoked by an interest in material fiction, Melis’ work examines the unseen tether of the physical and emotional weights that affect individuals in how they perceive their connection to others, their bodies, and space. Melis is an active writer within the jewelry/metals field and is a regular contributor to Art Jewelry Forum. In addition to her writing, Melis has extensively exhibited internationally at venues including the Benaki Museum in Greece, the Royal Venus Hotel in China, and Alliages Gallery in France.

She was a finalist for the 2020 Arte y Joya International Award and was awarded the Emerging Talent Award and the Milano Jewelry Week at RJW Award at the 2021 iteration of Romanian Jewelry Week (RJW). She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her BFA from the University of Michigan. She has held faculty positions at several institutions across the country and currently is an Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of Metals/Jewelry at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan USA.

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My works are driven by personal experience and the search for semblance in my connections to others, especially when those connections feel broken or fragile. I move the enamel in my work into a place of fragility, calcification, and unsettlement. 

Through over firing enamels to the point of black and blue oxidation, or under firing enamel till it is barely fused like a sugar, I call to question our relationship to the delicate relationships around us. There is coldness through color and texture; sensual textile chaining draws from bodily experience. These dichotomies drive my concepts, which embrace the less than beautiful aspects of being: feelings of self doubt, lust, desire confusion, baggage, emotional distance, and vulnerability. Ultimately, I believe that this is where beauty in jewelry objects manifests as a physical product. It is where desire has become a sublimation of our soul’s perception of material, content, aesthetic, and connection.