This unique, blackened necklace has been made by artist Virginia Sprague. It features handmade cable chain, with feature twist chain links throughout the length of the piece. Hanging on the chain is a modified trilliant cut dark green Australian sapphire. The sapphire sits in an organic, textured 9ct yellow gold bezel. To one side of the stone is highly textured bar, with 11 flush set small light green sapphires. The piece has been finished with a handmade t-bar and toggle clasp, sitting on the other side of the stone as a feature.
Dimensions: Approx 55cm long, 4mm wide links.
Stone: Dark green Australian Sapphire in a modified trilliant cut, approx 8mm x 8mm.
x11 small light green sapphires.
Materials: Oxidised sterling silver, 9ct yellow gold, sapphire
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.
