Gemoirs & Reflections by Max Danger

Through glinting gemstones and brooding gold, Hello, the Roses invites you into Gemoirs and Reflections, an exhibition by Danish goldsmith and lapidarist, Max Danger.
Leaving the studio, I found myself imagining Max somewhere in the world, moving between mountain roads and crowded gem markets, turning rough stones over in his hands while searching for the next discovery. It seemed this thought matched the inquisitiveness he displayed meeting me. After spending time among the tools, stones and objects of his workshop, it became clear that the work begins long before the bench and continues long after the finished piece leaves it.
Meeting Max in his subterranean work shop, a miniature modern catacomb, I was immediately struck by the enthusiasm of a craftsman wholly consumed by his practice. Every tool appeared meticulously placed, every process considered, every material respected. There was a quiet pride as he laid out his earliest gem cutting experiments beside more recent work, tracing years of persistence and refinement through stone after stone. 
While discussing stone cutting, Max spoke of the tensions hidden within gemstones. Some stones carry stresses so finely balanced that a single incorrect cut can cause them to fracture or splinter into oblivion. Looking at the finished work, it is difficult to imagine such fragility. Moving from the work bench to the jewellery boxes revealed another universe entirely. Rings became spacecraft looping around a finger; tiny robotic figures stood watch atop precious metal structures or hid inside impossible miniature castings one could wear, all these intricate details only submitting themselves underneath a loupe, one is rewarded on a close inspection with entire worlds hidden inside another material reality. 
This is the oscillating universe of Max Danger, where characters of a utopian future meet the delicate nuance of cut precious stones laid into golden, wearable objects, a practice woven not only through goldsmithing, illustration and stone cutting, but through an unrelenting search for exactly what his dreams envision. 
Among the gemstones, sketches and gold sat traces of street culture, comic books, graffiti and hip hop. Precision met playfulness. The precious met the peculiar. The exact coexisted with the free. This menagerie of space, time and action conglomerates into a ball of exuberant flame and spirit, locked inside untarnished ideas, blissfully ignorant of what it should be.
Looking back, it is difficult not to think of the title Gemoirs and Reflections. Stones carry histories far older than ourselves, compressed beneath immense pressures and geological time. Through cutting and setting, they become vessels for new stories, each facet catching light from a different angle, each reflection offering another way of seeing.
The extraordinary often begins disguised as the ordinary, it’s forged by pressure with the weight of uncountable history and then the commonplace becomes precious. 
As time creates the stone, the cutter reveals what was hidden, one facet at a time. 

- Owen Armour