Blanche Tilden — 'Camber' Necklace (Blue), 2026

"New necklaces and brooches combine the signature materials of my practice - glass, titanium and silver, to explore relationships between material culture, the natural world and the built environment. I have used repetition, mark making and transparency to explore natural order, the organic, and the element of chance." - Blanche Tilden.

These new works connect to work made using salvaged glass camera lenses, silver and anodised titanium. Tilden expands her use of colour and move beyond the geometric, using the metaphor of the lens and close looking to consider new directions and different viewpoints.

Moving glass from a solid to a viscous state through applying heat, Tilden has developed new fluid forms in glass that highlight a feeling of softness and movement. Glass and metal sit together in brooches that capture frozen moments - organic curves created beyond her studio, using the intense heat of the glassblowing hot shop. Repeated elements link and layer to create necklaces that follow the curves of the body.

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Blanche Tilden has forged an international reputation as a designer and artist, specialising in both studio glass and contemporary jewellery since 1995. Exploring an enduring fascination with the material and metaphoric potential of glass, Tilden’s work prompts us to consider evolving relationships between humanity and technology, referencing modernism, industrial materials and objects, and the built environment.

In 2023, Tilden was awarded a PhD by ANU, researching uses of glass in combination with other materials to investigate the central idea of contemporary jewellery - which is value. Looking beyond traditional understandings of intrinsic value, this practice-based research explored cultural, historic, aesthetic, and sentimental values relating to both glass and jewellery.

Ever curious, creative collaboration is an important aspect of Tilden’s practice - generating exciting opportunities to innovate, exchange ideas, build understanding and create lasting connections.

Tilden is represented by Funaki Gallery Melbourne.

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Lean In

September 5 – October 31, 2026

Lean In brings together new work by three of Australia’s most innovative and established contemporary jewellers: Laura Deakin, Dr Marian Hosking and Dr Blanche Tilden. This exhibition showcases jewellery and objects created through a sustained collaboration between these makers, who have spent time working side-by-side, leaning into each other’s practices, and experimenting across studios.

Lean In is an invitation: to move closer to the work, to notice fine details and to enter the dialogue between artists. It asks audiences to lean into the conversation that unfolds when mentorship, friendship and curiosity intersect with material intelligence and generosity. At once intimate and ambitious, the exhibition celebrates how leaning in can mean listening, supporting, challenging and ultimately expanding the possibilities of contemporary jewellery practice.

Read more about the exhibition here:

Material: Flameworked borosilicate glass, 925 silver

Dimensions: approx. 25 x 240mm

Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.