New exhibition platforms UK’s up-and-coming jewellers
The Goldsmiths’ Centre’s Spotlighting Getting Started showcase highlights the industry’s rising stars
By Amy Wakeham
You can catch the work of the jewellery industry’s newest rising stars at a free public exhibition now on at the Goldsmiths’ Centre. The Spotlighting Getting Started showcase, which runs until 18th February 2026, features the collections of 15 emerging jewellers and silversmiths handpicked from the Goldsmiths’ Centre’s 2025 training programme of the same name.
The course helped the jewellers and makers to hone essential skills for their businesses. “Spotlighting Getting Started provides UK-based early career makers with the chance to translate their learning into real-world practice,” explains Charlotte Dew, head of public programmes at the Goldsmiths’ Centre. “Through a series of assignments, participants build core professional skills – such as interview preparation, effective photography, and promoting their work online. Each year, we see their confidence grow, helping them expand their businesses and present their work at events across the UK and internationally.”
After completing the course, the 2025 cohort were invited to apply for a place in the Spotlighting Getting Started exhibition and follow-on training, with the final 15 selected for the showcase by a panel of experts, including author and consultant Rachael Taylor, fine jeweller Darren Sherwood of Mr Sherwood, and members of the Goldsmiths’ Centre team.
The showcase will highlight a range of contemporary jewellery practises, from metal and glass work, to gemstone-led construction and innovative stone-setting. Here are this year’s selected exhibitors.
Amelia Appleby
Inspired by her travels in India as a teenager, Amelia Appleby specialises in creating colourful, imaginative, handmade pieces out of mixed metals, and gemstones.
Beth Chesser
With a multi-disciplinary background across music, art and jewellery, Beth Chesser combines traditional and contemporary techniques to create her geometric, minimalistic designs.
Deniz Turan
Based between London and Istanbul, visual artist Deniz Turan makes art jewellery. She explores how her work can interact with a body’s daily movements, transforming routine actions into performance art.
Emily Bailey
Emily Bailey makes intricately carved pieces inspired by the natural decay of treasured objects and the organic beauty of fossils and stone. She uses ancient forms of jewellery making, including lost wax casting, sand casting and cuttlefish casting.
Emilia Belderbos
Emilia Belderbos’s jewellery is hand-made from materials including acrylic, gemstones and silver leaf, featuring designs that play with light, colour and movement.
Ella Bonomi
Ella Bonomi takes inspiration from nature, myths, and history, and hand carves her designs in wax before casting them in silver.
Estelle Burton
A designer, maker and researcher, Estelle Burton’s work is based on exploring innovations in glass technology and transforming 'unrecyclable' glass into jewellery.
Fabien Y. Marcque
Architecture meets adornment in Fabien Y. Marcque’s work, which explores Brutalist forms, structural clarity, and the dialogue between object and space.
Finlay Grant
Architecture, geometry, and colour inspire the designs of Finlay Grant, who uses enamel, silver and mixed materials to create his jewellery.
Helen Dugdale
Inspired by the visual significance of old linen bindings used in the ancient process of mummification, Helen Dugdale creates jewellery using a technique of interlocking metals she developed over many years.
Jessica Awari-Tefé
A silversmith and jeweller with a background in materials engineering and metallurgy, Jessica Awari-Tefé’s jewellery is influenced by Japonisme, the 19th century movement in which western artists were inspired by Japanese art.
Joey Zhong
Joey Zhong makes fine jewellery that derives from a fascination with objects made for holding and carrying, which act as a metaphor for paths travelled.
Liu Yang
Liu Yang is a jewellery designer and gemologist who is fascinated with natural mineral inclusions. She explores innovative stone-setting techniques that challenge the conventional boundaries between metal and gemstones.
Lois Lo
Creative stone setting is at the heart of Lois Lo’s work, which is all about exploring innovation in craft. She uses bold, architectural forms and unique settings to create her distinctive pieces.
Militsa Milenkova
Artist and maker Militsa Milenkova creates jewellery and objects that challenge the notion of value and pose the question of what is considered precious and why.
The Spotlighting Getting Started exhibition is at the Goldsmiths’ Centre until 18 February 2026. Free admission. More details here.
Main image: Greenhouse ring in stainless steel with white topaz, by Lois Lo.