Manon van Kouswijk is a Dutch Australian artist who has lived and worked in Melbourne since 2010.

Manon’s working methodology explores and translates archetypal jewellery forms and motifs through a range of materials and processes. An integral aspect of her practice is the framing and contextualising of her work through the making of exhibitions and artist publications often in collaboration with other practitioners.

Manon likes to think that it’s possible to reinvent jewellery, despite the fact that its archetypal forms and motifs haven’t fundamentally changed throughout its long history. She views these archetypes as templates that she uses for her translations of the jewellery types she works from (for example the beaded necklace). The traces of the making process are often visible in Manon’s work. The imperfection of the handmade, present in marks of fingerprints and moulds, is an integral part of the objects. While originating from a conceptual approach to making at the same time her works embrace the sensual qualities of jewellery objects in the use of colour, their weight, sound, rhythm and material expression.

Manon studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam where she was Head of the Jewellery department from 2007 until 2010. Her work is exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide and is part of private and public collections including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Røsska Museet, Sweden, FNAC, Paris, the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, France, National Gallery of Australia and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.