These long, organic earrings from Virginia Sprague have been made in oxidised sterling silver. Sprague has crafted them using loops of sterling silver, creating a statement dangly earring reminiscent of something found in the natural world. The earrings hang from handmade ear hooks, while the rest of the piece tapers down at the bottom where the wire threads through a natural white pearl.
Dimensions: 16.5cm total length, approx 20mm wide at widest point, tapering to 3mm
Materials: Sterling silver, natural white pearls
Based in Bangkok, Virginia Sprague is an Australian maker of contemporary art jewellery whose practice explores our entangled relationship with the environments we inhabit. Her work is grounded in an iterative, materially led process that allows form to emerge through close engagement with place.
Working with a variety of traditional metalsmithing techniques, Virginia creates pieces that exist between the natural and the constructed, the emotional and the abstract. Through this tension, her practice reflects on environmental vulnerability, material value, and the fragile systems—both ecological and human—that shape our world. Materials are chosen not only for their physical qualities but for the narratives they carry, challenging conventional notions of preciousness, permanence, and beauty. Virginia’s work considers adornment as an intimate form of storytelling. Jewellery becomes a site through which ideas of place, connection, and responsibility are articulated, situating the body as both witness to and participant in broader environmental narratives.
Her practice seeks to reframe contemporary jewellery as a reflective gesture—one that invites attentiveness, care, and reconsideration of our relationship to the natural world. Virginia has exhibited her work in Australia and internationally.
