JULIA OBERMAIER (b.1989)
Julia Obermaier works in her atelier in Kempten, near Munich, Germany. A lapidary artist, she is known for bringing life to stones by exposing their beauty and imperfections, believing that each one has a unique story to tell.
“Stones fascinate me. Every little part of them is unique and an embodiment of unswayable nature. A human being can shape a stone but not fabricate one. The material stone has something majestic. It is a hard-bitten material, heavy and stable but also light and fragile. Stonecutting takes a lot of time and patience and resembles meditation. It is as if the stone keeps the eternity within itself to thwart the fast pace of our time. My playing hands are the tools for my ideas and thinking. Through them, I feel and touch the surface and the outlines of the material.”
She started her jewelry career by apprenticing with a goldsmith at the State Vocational School for Glass and Jewelry in Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz, after which she studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Trier, Idar Oberstein, where she received her BFA in gemstones and jewelry. Following an exchange semester at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, Obermaier went on to receive her Master of Advanced Design at Munich’s University of Applied Sciences.
Obermaier has exhibited her work at galleries across Europe since 2014 and has twice been a finalist for the BVK-Prize in Munich (2020 and 2023), awarded “to works that show unique artistic creation based on fine craftsmanship” for artists under thirty-five. In 2022, she was a finalist and awarded the Special Mention in the prestigious Loewe Craft prize competition and shown in the Hauser & Wirth exhibition Within. Without in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2022. Her jewelry has also been shown in exhibitions in contemporary art museums in Japan and Lithuania.
Obermaier’s work was featured in the Mahnaz Collection 2023 exhibition “Materials in Play.”
Click here to view a conversation between NYC Jewelry Week co-founder Bella Neyman and Julia Obermaier.
