Dominika Durtan is an Artist, Art Director and Designer-turned-jeweller.
Dominika Durtan has experience working on projects for advertising agencies, publishing houses and corporations. Amongst them are: 3M, AIG Credit, Harper’s Bazaar, Nestle, Office Depot, Richline Group, Time Out, TNT, Toyota, and Whirlpool, to mention just a few.
Dominika Durtan’s works have been featured in Europe, North America and the Middle East. She worked in New York City (where she was working as a freelance art director), in Dubai (where she ran a private art atelier in the city’s historical Bastakiya district and was working as a designer for various magazines, amongst them Harper’s Bazaar Art and Time Out Dubai) and Montreal (where she acquired most of her goldsmithing skills) amongst other places.
Dominika Durtan holds a Master of Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland, and has supplemented her education with international arts training. She is skilled in various forms of media: drawing, painting, computer graphics, photography, stone sculpting, ceramics and woodcarving.
Dominika’s journey began in a small village in northeast Poland, known as Masuria, the “thousand lakes region”. Her roots in rural Poland gave her a deep connection and love for nature and a respect for the manual labour, both of which are reflected in her works.
Dominika’s grandfather was a skilled blacksmith and owned a wood workshop. Those skills were passed on to her father and then to her. She feels most at home working with chisels, carpenter planes and files. It is in her grandfather’s studio where she began to experiment with sculpture, learning the properties of natural materials and developing a respect for the tools and techniques. It was there that her curiosity and imagination were lit, and a life-long artistic journey began.
More recently Dominika Durtan picked up an interest in making jewellery. Following the tradition of the medieval journeymen, she has travelled the world and studied with local masters in the arts of gemmology, lapidary, stone-setting, and goldsmithing in Antwerp, Dubai, Montreal, Sri Lanka, as well as her home country: Poland.
Dominika Durtan is also a published author and illustrator. She illustrated a book: “Brzechwa Dzieciom” by Jan Brzechwa and wrote a guidebook to Dubai for Polish travellers which became a bestseller on publishers website in 2014: Dubai – Travel Book.
AWARDS (jewellery):
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- 2019 – Finalist of the Prix François-Houdé Montréal, Canada
- 2018 – Finalist of the Young Designers competition at The Munich Show, Germany
- 2018 – First prize in debutant category, École de Joaillerie de Montréal, Canada
- 2018 – Public Prize, Exhibition Gala at École de Joaillerie de Montréal, Canada
- 2018 – Honorary mention at Artistar Jewels Exhibition (under an artistic alias: Izabela Chan), Milan, Italy
EXHIBITIONS (art & jewellery):
- 2019/20 – Group exhibition of the Prix François-Houdé at La Guilde, Montréal, Canada
- 2019 – Migrations, exhibition at École de Joaillerie de Montréal, Canada
- 2019 – Metal & Smith, jewellery show, New York City, USA
- 2019 – Artistar Jewels Exhibition, Milan, Italy
- 2018 – Young Designers Corner, Gemworld Munich, Germany
- 2018 – Corporation des Bijoutiers du Québec, Expo Prestige, Montreal, Canada
- 2018 – Artistar Jewels Exhibition (under an artistic alias: Izabela Chan), Milan, Italy
- 2017 – ‘Stone carving exhibition’, Atelier de Sculpture sur pierre Michèle Lavoie, Montreal, Canada
- 2015 – ‘Explorations in Watercolour and Beyond’, Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE
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Check also Dominika Durtan’s proprietary brand of experimental jewellery: IZABELA CHAN™ as well as her travel blog: Natural Born Vagabond.