Conversation Piece / Post-Colonial Gold
In dialogue with Sarah Lucas
Iconic resonance: Charlotte Gainsbourg
Value: Disobedient Desire
This conversation piece stands in dialogue with Sarah Lucas. Not by literally quoting her work, but by bringing forward a related attitude: the disruption of polite femininity, romantic expectation and the cultural systems that turn desire into confirmation.
The object takes the form of a ring — a form loaded with recognition. Across generations, the ring has carried the promise of being chosen, confirmed and publicly acknowledged. It belongs to the language of love, but also to the language of status, possession and female value.
This object does not reject that memory. It takes it seriously — and then disturbs it.
Sarah Lucas has consistently pulled the visual language of sex, body and desire out of its respectable packaging. Her work uses ordinary objects — chairs, mattresses, fruit, cigarettes, stockings — to reveal how deeply gender, power and class are embedded in the everyday. In Lucas’s work, a familiar object is never innocent for long. It begins to speak, often with humour, vulgarity, discomfort and precision.
The joke is never only a joke.
The vulgarity is never only vulgar.
The object becomes evidence.
This ring searches for the same value: Disobedient Desire. It does not present romance as a smooth ideal. The pink stone still carries associations of promise, intimacy and attraction, but it refuses to behave as a perfect symbol. It is not pure, not obedient, not quietly decorative. It appears more bodily, more unstable, more charged.
The setting does not simply display the stone; it holds it under tension. The ring remains recognisable, but the ritual begins to falter. What usually confirms value now begins to question it.
Within Post-Colonial Gold, gold is not used as a sign of luxury, possession or power. It marks a shift in value. What matters is not the price of the material, but the meaning it activates. The object becomes a portable site of reflection: a conversation piece in which art, body, memory and social codes continue to circulate beyond the museum.
Charlotte Gainsbourg becomes a powerful iconic carrier of this value. Her public image and artistic presence do not rely on triumphant glamour, polished femininity or easy accessibility. Her presence is spare, intelligent, reserved and slightly unreachable. She carries a form of attraction that does not come from availability, but from self-possession.
Like Lucas, Gainsbourg refuses the obedient version of femininity. She does not need to please in order to remain unforgettable. Her beauty is not smooth, completed or corrected into conventional desirability. It is ambiguous, quiet, nervous, elegant and resistant. Precisely for that reason, she adds a second layer to this object: the strength of a female presence that remains visible without becoming fully available to the gaze of others.
Lucas and Gainsbourg meet not through discipline, but through attitude. Both disturb the systems through which women are looked at, desired, classified or confirmed. Both understand that femininity can be sharp, awkward, erotic, intelligent and unresolved at the same time. Their power lies not in perfection, but in tension.
For our time, this value feels urgent again. We live in a culture where female visibility is still often tied to approval, desirability and social confirmation. Disobedient Desire reminds us that value does not need to arise from being chosen. It can arise from refusal, ambiguity and the right not to be fully readable.
Not a promise of obedience.
A ring that makes desire lose its innocence.
Each piece is handmade and unique. Through a unique ID and QR code, the object is connected to a digital layer: the artist in dialogue, the iconic resonance, the value, the material reference and the context behind the work.
Specifications
Type: wearable sculpture / ring
Material: sculptural ring form with pink stone and gold-toned setting
Finish: handmade; each piece is unique
Collection: Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold
Artist in dialogue: Sarah Lucas
Iconic resonance: Charlotte Gainsbourg
Value: Disobedient Desire
Digital layer: unique ID + QR code
Use: sculptural wearable object, handle with care
Price: €550
Shipping Info
Ships from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Each piece is carefully packed and shipped with tracking.
As every object is handmade and unique, small variations in finish, form and material are part of the work.
Meta Description
Handmade wearable sculpture ring by Annelies Nuy, part of Conversation Pieces / Post-Colonial Gold, in dialogue with Sarah Lucas. With Charlotte Gainsbourg as iconic resonance, the object translates the value Disobedient Desire into a wearable sculptural form.
HS code: 711790
EU commodity / CN code: 71179000
Product description: Handmade imitation jewellery / wearable sculpture ring with pink stone and gold-toned sculptural setting.
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