A combination of beauty and banality: this is Leo Costelloe jewelry

Artist Leo Costelloe explores the dark and sinister through precious materials, and creates works such as huge glass bows or birthday cakes.

Australian jewelry artist Leo Costelloe takes popular culture and spiritual practice as his main inspiration to create his delicate and sinister works, which he sometimes puts up for sale on Instagram.

Settled in London, at the age of 24 he studied Jewelry Design at Central Saint Martins with the aim of acquiring artistic skills without being quite sure what he wanted to do next. Speaking about his creations, Costelloe refers to his childhood in Australia and explains, “I grew up on the outskirts of the city, in a really beautiful place. We didn’t have a lot of money or anything, but it was beautiful. And a bit fucked up,” he added. “One thing I learned growing up is that no matter where you go, there’s always something wrong. And that’s where my work comes from. It’s a little dark.”

Paradoxically, Leo explores the dark in the world through precious materials such as flowers, metals, hair and glass. At Guts gallery he presented a series of sculptures such as a silver doll with its own wig, an oversized crystal bow, a mauve cake with many tiers or a synthetic hair ponytail with a blue ribbon and holding a crystal bow titled “Dyson airwrap tutorial alone; I feel so emotional”.

“I try to navigate this strange liminal space between my two worlds, commissioned jewelry and sculpture. The work has fashion aspects and more static ones. They are like two aspects of my world,” she recounted. “My universe is very specific. And the reference points I’ve been using for as long as I’ve been making jewelry, and when I was making pastels, and before that flowers. It’s all the same research, just applied through different materials…. I’m just trying to figure out what I like best.”