Hannah Tomoko’s boundless intellectual curiosity and her dual citizenship—which have taken her from one side of the Atlantic to the other—undermine her sense of belonging. From this sense of unease emerges the personal foundation of her work, on display at the Hectare Gallery. The silver wire that she bends, folds, and transforms through a cyclical motion tells the story of a quest for vital connections that only rapture can fulfill. To succeed, starting from nothing, in translating and conveying something that transcends us—this is the challenge that Hannah Tomoko takes on here with brilliance: letting her thoughts wander, letting go, and surrendering to beauty.
Hannah Tomoko draws inspiration from the ancient art of filigree, preserving its floral motifs in particular. In her Linéa collection, she uses a long, round wire bent in a rhythmic pattern to create geometric, more abstract floral designs. This innovative technique, which applies tension to the wire, allows her to design lightweight, stretchy jewelry. Her earrings with tubular clasps showcase her inventiveness and mastery of her craft. The wire no longer serves merely as decoration but rather as a sculptural visual language that is recognizable throughout this series.
Hanna Tomoko discovered the filigree technique by chance in Paraguay and became interested in jewelry design and art. She earned a Bachelor’s degree (BAF) in the Department of Jewelry and Objects at the University of Hasselt (PXL-MAD) in Belgium and a Master’s degree (MAF) in Jewelry and Corpus at Stockholm University (Konstfack) in Sweden. Her fascination with the human body and its expressiveness in conveying the human condition led her to extend her studies with a doctoral thesis in the Arts titled “Via the Body: A Research on the Expression of the Human Condition through Body Fragmentation—Jewelry Art as Contemporary Relics” (KULeuven – UHasselt – MAD-Faculty, Belgium).
Her drawings and jewelry pieces have been exhibited internationally. In Belgium, they were shown at Caroline Van Hoeck’s gallery and during the European Triennial of Contemporary Jewelry (WCC-BF) in Mons in 2011. More recently, her pieces were featured at the OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival 2025 in Antwerp, presented by Les Brucelles, and at MAD Jewelry 2026 in New York (USA).
