Cooper Hewitt says...
Beppe Kessler is a textile and jewelry designer as well as a painter. She studied textile art and industrial textile design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and graduated in 1979. She began working as a freelance textile designer for Taunus Textildruck in Oberusel and later designed fabrics for Auping, a popular Dutch bedding company. Kessler’s textiles involve stripes, zig zags, ovals and polygons and an assorted yet muted color pallet. Her work also features themes inspired by nature such as wind, feathers, and branches. Many of Kessler’s designs for textiles began as drawings or paintings and they retain the painterly qualities, brush strokes, and line work. Kessler worked as a textile designer and teacher until 2000 at which point she transitioned into painting and jewelry design.
Kessler’s work with textiles has influenced her explorations of materials and led her to create many intriguing and unique forms in jewelry. Her designs utilize surprising combinations of natural materials not traditionally associated with jewelry, such as a broach made of burnt balsawood, a coiled frayed paper necklace, and necklaces made of rubber bands.
