Studio Practice
Arabel Lebrusán is an award-winning artist and jewellery designer with over two decades of experience working with precious materials. Trained as a fine artist and master goldsmith, her practice moves between art and jewellery, using making as a way of thinking through social, ecological and feminist concerns.
Working with responsibly sourced materials - traceable diamonds and rubies, recycled silver and artisanal Fairmined Gold - Lebrusan collaborates with highly skilled European craftspeople to produce works that extend beyond ornament. Objects are approached as both material achievements and critical responses: to extractivism, labour, violence, memory and the ethics of beauty.
Lebrusán's work has been exhibited at institutions including the Crafts Council, The Higgins Bedford, and the London Art Fair. Supported by researchers and academics across disciplines, her projects are grounded in verifiable data and lived experience, allowing each work to hold both intellectual rigour and emotional weight.
Jewellery within the studio is not separate from this practice. It is one of Lebrusán's languages.
Heaven & Hell: The state of the Jewellery Industry
Year: 2007-2015
Medium: Photo installation and diamond earrings
Unique, in private collection.
Can you tell the difference? For decades now, international media has called for attention on conflict diamonds. In spite of the noise, diamonds continue to be linked to the abuse of human rights, insurgent groups, unscrupulous governments and the fuelling of conflict in various African countries. Illicit diamonds make fabulous profits for terrorists and corporations alike. With as much clarity as a high quality stone, the jewellery industry illustrates the willingness of the world to turn away, rendered blind by the mesmerising sparkle of beautiful jewels.
You will be the messenger
Year: 2023
Medium: Found axe, sterling silver, natural diamonds and rubies
Dimensions: 40cm x 15cm x2cm
Exhibited: London Art Fair 2024, with Koop Projects
From 1991 to 2002, Sierra Leone endured a devastating civil war marked by brutal conflicts over diamond territories. Thousands of men and children faced mutilation with axes, preventing them from mining diamonds. This artwork is part of Lebrusan's body of work entitled 'The Book of Horrors and Hopes.' Serving as a diary chronicling the stories she’s encountered throughout her jewellery career - and her artistic responses to them - this body of work aims to somehow digest their brutality.
He does not ask about my age when I sell the gold to him
Year: 2022
Medium: Silver, mercury, gold leaf, brass, glass and wood display
Dimensions: 20cm x 15cm x 15cm
Nearly 40% of global mercury pollution comes from artisanal gold mining.
Knife Murders 275/275. England & Wales
Year: 2021
Medium: Set of 275 rings made of metal from police confiscated knives and other artefacts
Exhibited: Blunt Blades, The Higgins Bedford, 2021 – 2022; and London Art Fair 2024
Knife Murders 275/275 England and Wales is a set of 275 rings made using the metal from police confiscated knives and other artefacts. The rings represent homicides in England and Wales from April 2019 until March 2020. There are 10 small-sized rings to represent the murders of children (those aged under 16 years), 50 slim medium-sized rings to represent the murders of women, and 215 wide large-sized rings to represent the murders of men. Each ring is laser inscribed with a unique edition number (AL KM20 1/275, AL KM 20 2/275, etc.)
I'm mourning all the lost bodies across time and space
Year: 2023
Medium: Natural rose flower with solid silver coating
Dimensions: 70cm x 10cm x 10cm
Unique, in private collection.
Electric Apron
Year: 2014 – 2021
Medium: 1200 copper components, copper cable, fused plug
Dimensions: 130cm x 50cm x 2.5cm
Exhibited: Koop Projects, 2023
Mantilla
Year: 2007
Medium & Materials: 3,000 articulated silver components
Dimensions: 184cm x 56cm
Exhibited: Objects as a Muse, Crafts Council touring exhibition, 2008 - 2010
Lebrusan’s artworks are not conceived primarily for the body, but as sculptural, installation-based, or wall-mounted works. Jewellery emerges from the same ethical and conceptual framework - scaled differently, worn differently, but carrying related questions.
For a fuller archive of sculptural and site-specific works, please visit: