Rodrigo Ormachea
(he/him)
“My practice in jewelry is the foundation for all other mediums I engage in. My most recent work uses clay and other materials to create forms that are shaped by personal history, pulling from silhouettes that are at once familiar and forgotten. The resulting work becomes entangled in a dialog between the monolith, the artifact and the body. As I pull and borrow between various practices it seems that the title of interdisciplinary artist feels the most appropriate for the current work that I make.”
I am a 4th generation jeweler from Cusco, Peru. I reside in Ventura CA where I help run my family's jewelry shop of 30 plus years. I am also a painter, ceramist and interdisciplinary artist. I live with my 7 year old son who provides a constant sense of wonder when we create art.
How does your work relate to the theme of flourish(ing)?
“From the same cloth is an exploration of transition through time, distance, and cultural context. A weight from the Ashanti kingdom in modern-day Ghana, used for measuring gold, anchors the piece. As a descendant of enslaved people, this weight is a physical representation of my severed lineage. The negative space bound by the weight and the flowing silver shapes forms a simple four-petaled flower, representing the gendered and racial expectations of African American concepts of selfhood; the strange silver shapes growing outside that flower stand in for my choice to exist outside these bounds as a queer person. The piece represents being both rooted in what came before and totally unlike it. Flourishing beyond ascribed norms of society.”
"from the same cloth", Sterling silver, Akan bronze weight, and pearl, 4” x 3.5” x 2.5”, 2025
Photographs Courtesy of the Artist
NYCJW25 @ UrbanGlass, Queer Metalsmiths
