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Patrycja Zwierzynska: Building Volume in Metal
In her corner unit studio space filled with pieces of metal, epoxy, and tools, Patrycja Zwierzynska welcomed Craft Ontario in to reflect on her journey as a contemporary jeweller. Having worked out of multiple locations over the years, her current shared studio space on DuPont Street in Toronto provides a sense of community and stability that has allowed her to develop and refine her approach to jewellery-making. In our conversation below Zwierzynska speaks to how her experimentation with metal at a Harbourfront Centre residency, after graduating from NSCAD, expanded the scale of her work.
Craft Ontario is proud to display a collection of work by Patrycja Zwierzynska in the Craft Ontario Distillery Shop from March 1 - April 20, 2025. This collection blends hand carved, sculptural metalwork with the vibrancy of epoxy putty. The entire collection can also be viewed in the Online Shop!
A rounded brooch, its front face echoing its backside’s carved pattern, which she has on display, is being photographed in her studio. Zwierzynska comments, “It is a nice tactile thing. When you are dealing with multiple surfaces it is good for them all to be considered.”
“NSCAD is where I studied,” she continues, “I wanted to do larger things but still have them be light and wearable, but I found metal is not always conducive to that! I really like volume and voluminous forms and initially it was about how to do that in metal without making something heavy.
Then I started doing a lot of hollow works, I was knotting wire back then and fusing it and trying to make the forms. Eventually I was making similar forms using casting methods. I was using lots of textures, stuff that is reminiscent of nature but still abstract. These forms are familiar, everyone gets a different sense of what it reminds them of. These are essentially large pieces of metal but they don’t feel like that. To bring in colour I use an epoxy putty, it’s a sculptural material to make sculptures and props. It is a durable, 2-part putty that you can work with as clay and then carve into after!”
Craft Ontario, “How did you end up in Toronto after NSCAD?”
Zwierzynska, “I finished school in 2007 and then I was at the Harbourfront Centre as an Artist in Residence for 3 years…it’s been an ongoing relationship which was really nice! It was amazing, that is the community I am still mostly in touch with and those ended up being very long term relationships. Like Melanie (Egan)...she is the glue for everyone!
When I was at Harbourfront, they had visiting artists come by and run workshops, and I did a couple of workshops when I was there in crochet and I took that and realized yes, I am interested in this, and just started to play around and followed that with YouTube videos and self instructional stuff…My grandmother was a tailor, so when I was little she would show my sister and I little things, how to do things, so all of that is still in my head.
I feel like all of the things I do, like crochet, inform one another… making is a way of thinking that can be applied to other materials. I like that crossover of skill building even if it is not formal, structured learning…it is still your hands doing something, your brain is processing it, it makes everything a bit more rich.”
Visit the Jewellery Showcase by Patrycja Zwierzynska in the Craft Ontario Distillery Shop from March 1 - April 20, 2025. You can view the entire collection here!