Ildze Bogana

Having started her journey in the arts through sculpture and printmaking, Ildze (1991) came to jewellery art as an apprentice in a jeweller’s atelier. Her signature style and passion for the conceptual aspect of adornment emerged while studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where she obtained a Master’s degree in 2024, receiving the prestigious Mathilde Horlait-Dapsens Award for her Master’s project. Since completing her studies, Ildze has participated in exhibitions in Antwerp, London, and New York. She is currently working on her own collections, artistic projects, and individual commissions.
The process of making jewellery for Ildze is a game and a space for experimentation and self-discovery. An essential component of Ildze’s work, both as an impulse for ideas and as the source of physical material, is finding and thrifting human-made things, reflecting on the associations and symbolism they evoke. This is how she confronts the existential tension as a maker of new things in a world already oversaturated with man-made objects. Important elements in Ildze’s works are movement, transformation, humour, story, and play, and she achieves their presence by using various mechanical solutions and a playful invitation for the wearer of the jewellery to participate in the creation of the image of the jewel. Ildze perceives jewellery as a wonderful opportunity for an intimate connection between individual and art. Her goal is to create both wearable jewellery and jewellery-objects-sculptures, where the illusory boundaries of disciplines can be challenged, encouraging the perception of jewellery as an independent art medium.