Julie Hamisky

Julie Hamisky comes from a family of artists. From a young age, she showed an affinity for sculpture practices. After beginning her sculptural practice with her father during her teens, she traveled to Paris, and later Michoacan, Mexico to receive a formal art education. For the next 20 years, Hamisky worked alongside her grandmother, renowned sculptor Claude Lalanne. During this time, Lalanne introduced Hamisky to the process of electrolysis - a process, which turns live plants into metal. Electrolysis would later become the foundation of Hamisky’s jewelry making process. Hamisky says: “In the footsteps of Claude, I am using whatever nature can provide.

From Julie Hamisky: 
I grew up in a family of artists, most of them sculptors and was surrounded by a special atmosphere where my interest never stopped growing. I had curiosity for all: materials, designs, tools, and techniques. When I was a teenager, I started working with my father on his sculptures. Then I went to art school in Paris for three years and later I had the opportunity to go to Mexico. A good friend of my grand parents (also their technical mentor) and his wife a sculptor as well, had an arts and crafts school in Michoacán. I lived and studied there the techniques of metal and Mexican culture. When I came back to France, I started to work with my grand mother Claude Lalanne and I worked by her side for twenty years along with my husband, Darius Metcalf.
There I completed a long formation and developed the work of electrolyzing; a technique my stepfather taught to my grand mother and then she passed it on to me. That’s now the main technique I use in my work.  In the footsteps of Claude, I am using whatever nature can provide, turning it into metal And transforming it to express myself.