Description

Mihaela Coman’s Gogol’s Overcoat necklace is a unique, one-off design. The distinctive piece is cast in silver and hangs on a handmade silver chain.

Mihaela is an independent jeweller who lives in North Norfolk. She is one of our GroundJewels selected artists.

She creates enchanting jewellery and as a maker seeks to engage with the wearer, offering a portal to her world. Mihaela uses jewellery as a means to tell stories:

“Narrative jewellery is most helpful, because it can be figurative and allows me to play with objects and people in the most direct way”.

Telling Stories with Jewellery

Each collection portrays a different narrative, and each item of jewellery is a unique, one-off piece. Project titles include “Childhood Memories” of Communist Romania “The Burden of the Past” and “Such a Waste”. We can relate to her compelling narratives through prosaic objects such as Gogol’s Overcoat,  shopping bags and line drying clothes. Mihaela’s talent is to commemorate these everyday objects in precious metal.

Gogol’s Overcoat

“The Overcoat is a short story about an obscure personage with a humble life in the small world of administration clerks. No ambitions, no desires.

One extraordinary fact changes his life: his overcoat is beyond repair. He needs a new one.  He dreams of this every day. Stringent savings and months later he proudly wears his distinguished new overcoat. His happiness is shattered when his overcoat is violently ripped from him. The police humiliates him also.  He suffers, he becomes ill and dies.

This is not the end of the story. The Overcoat will come back.  It will haunt those people who mistreated him.

We all suffered when those who have power to do so humiliated us. If we only had a guardian like the Overcoat to seek revenge for us.”

About Mihaela

Mihaela grew up in Romania and lived there until recently. Then, when her daughter left for the UK, Mihaela decided to follow. She left her job in Bucharest and began a masters course in Jewellery at the University for Creative Arts. In 2019 she graduated and next year she will begin her PhD at Edinburgh College of Art .

Overall, Mihaela has created the perfect medium for her artistic expression:

“Empowered by the freedom of expression that jewellery can offer, I hope that my work is an authentic, sincere and honest expression of my ideas and emotions.”