Jewelry designs by Greek sculptor Sophia Vári will be in the spotlight with two exhibitions over the coming months. Louisa Guinness Gallery in London is opening on November 12 a retrospective exhibition titled “Scale of Beauty,” while the Parisian Galerie miniMASTERPIECE is set to offer in December an exclusive series of new pieces showcasing the artist’s experimentation with new materials like crystal, amber, and jet.

Born in Athens in 1940, Vári spent much of her childhood in Switzerland and also studied in England and France. Married to the Colombian sculptor Fernando Botero, Vári began her artistic career as a figurative painter, but turned to abstract sculpture in the mid-80s when she also started jewelry design — “portable sculpture” as she calls them — as an extension of her artworks. Her works show a mix of Cycladic aesthetics with strong influences of primitive cultures (Olmec, Mayan, and Egyptian) and her more recent jewelry pieces present tangled and intertwined circular shapes with contrasting materials like ebony against gold or red coral.

"Scale of Beauty" at Louisa Guinness Gallery encompasses the artist’s jewelry work from the 1980s to the present day, with some 50 works from across this period, along with a series of new works created exclusively for the exhibition.

Galerie miniMASTERPIECE will present 10 new pieces - primarily rings and cufflinks - all characterized by their sensual, voluminous curves. Amongst the new materials she has used is the Tagua nut seed, sometimes called “vegetable ivory” because of its texture and color.

“Scale of Beauty” will run at Louisa Guinness Gallery until December 18; “Sophia Vari: Exclusive Jewels” runs at Galerie miniMASTERPIECE, December 5‑January 24, 2015.

as first published on BlouinArtinfo.com