artists
every piece has a story, and every story begins with an artist
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND · CONTEMPORARY JEWELLER
Fran Carter
Fran Carter is a Wellington-based contemporary jeweller whose intuitive practice transforms traditional metals, plastics and found objects into distinctive pieces of wearable art. Through experimentation and material reclamation, she challenges conventional ideas of value while revealing new possibilities within discarded and overlooked materials.
about
Fran Carter’s path to contemporary jewellery began with a background in fashion design and an enduring fascination with materials—their physical qualities, cultural associations and potential to become something entirely unexpected.
Fran holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Visual Arts from Whitireia New Zealand. Her practice developed further during a postgraduate residency at Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, where she explored ideas surrounding waste and how our relationship with discarded materials might be reframed.
Working intuitively, Fran moves between traditional metals, plastics and found objects. Materials that may initially appear redundant or without value are reconsidered, processed and transformed into jewellery with a new physical and cultural life.
Experimentation sits at the heart of her practice. Rather than beginning with a fixed outcome, Fran responds to the individual qualities of each material—its colour, texture, flexibility, history and existing marks.
Her background in fashion design continues to influence her understanding of jewellery as something worn on and experienced through the body. Each piece balances material exploration with form, movement and wearability.
Through the use of reclaimed and unconventional materials, Fran encourages viewers to reconsider where value is found. Her work reveals the potential for beauty, meaning and craftsmanship within objects that might otherwise be discarded.
Fran’s award-winning jewellery has been exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally, including Australia and Germany. Her exhibition history includes presentations at Auckland Art Gallery, The Dowse Art Museum, Objectspace, Pātaka Art + Museum, Radiant Pavilion in Melbourne and Galerie Handwerk in Munich.
Her work is represented by galleries and design stores across New Zealand, including The Jewel & The Jeweller, Vū Jewellers, Vessel, Mason & Collins and the Pātaka Toi Store.
Fran’s jewellery asks us to look again at the materials surrounding us—to consider what we discard, how value is assigned and what possibilities may still remain within the overlooked.
Because sometimes the most unexpected material carries the most interesting story.
Fran Carter
A bold contemporary pendant that transforms discarded materials into a striking piece of wearable art.
Created by Wellington contemporary jeweller Fran Carter, this large pendant belongs to her Liminal Moments, Liminal Spaces series. The work reflects the visual fragments gathered while moving through the city—moss-covered corners, peeling paint, weathered surfaces and pieces of discarded plastic and metal.
Fran transforms single-use gelato sample spoons through her own hand-developed process, creating a translucent surface layered with soft greens, yellow and touches of vivid orange. Its irregular upper edge is determined by the reclaimed material itself, giving the pendant an organic quality that contrasts with its strong, curved form.
The reverse is made from a repurposed perforated baking tin finished in fluorescent orange enamel, referencing hazard signs and stormwater grates. Fine silver rivets, aluminium details and a hand-plaited adjustable cord complete this distinctive statement piece.
The series was selected for Adorn Axis’s online exhibition Here & Now: A Sign of the Times, presented for New York Jewelry Week in 2022.
Sculptural. Reclaimed. Bold.
Repurposed plastic from gelato sample spoons, brass, repurposed aluminium, aluminium chenier, fine silver, stainless-steel wire, enamel paint and hand-plaited nylon cord 115 × 100 × 5 mm, with adjustable cord Large contemporary pendant on a hand-plaited adjustable nylon cord 2022
This is an original, handcrafted piece of contemporary jewellery. Small variations and irregularities are intrinsic to the reclaimed materials and making process.