Holoculus is a remarkable new group of objects revealing Jiro Kamata's ongoing fascination with light and reflectivity, and their manipulation with lenses.

Visitors to Funaki and the Melbourne Design Fair will be familiar with Jiro's Holon rings, with their lustrous colour and shine. As well as further exploration of this series, this exhibition features new works in Jiro's more recent Oculus series, where specially produced, tiny lenses create complex, romantic and incredibly seductive jewellery.

American curator Kellie Riggs calls Jiro's works "instant contemporary classics dependent on no one period in time", and in fact they are design objects in the best sense: innovative in their materiality, surprising, entirely suited to their purpose and never compromising wearability or comfort. She also says "[he] is a minimalist and a maximalist. I choose to compare Jiro's opus of jewellery wonders to the most adventurous and stunning of high fashion, rather than to high art or academia because frankly, it's more fun."

Jiro Kamata hails from a long family tradition of goldsmithing in Hirosaki, Japan, where his grandfather owned a jeweller and watchmaker shop. After training at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich from 2000-2006, Kamata went on to become assistant professor at the same institution until 2015. Jiro won the City of Goldsmith Award in Hanau in 2006 and the Förderpreis Award in Munich in 2011. His work is held in collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, USA, Die Neue Sammlung, Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, the Victoria & Albert Museum, UK and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Jiro Kamata HOLOCULUS catalogue