Zuzana
Korbaleva

Zuzana Korbaleva grew up in Prague, where centuries of architecture and applied craft surrounded her at every step. In her adult life she found her home in the Pacific Northwest and now works from her studio on Vashon Island, Washington. The two places never left her: the organic feminine beauty of nature she discovered here blends in her work with the industrial precision and manmade complexity she absorbed there. The tension between those two worlds is what ZUZKO looks like.

She had been drawing and painting for as long as she could remember when jewelry found her — specifically, when her husband gave up searching for the perfect gift and handed her a set of pliers, an ounce of silver, and a wire-wrapping class instead. What began in the basement of a craftsman home in Seattle became a full-fledged studio practice and brand, with over fifty galleries across the United States now carrying her work. The Tacoma Art Museum Store, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art Store, and Freehand Gallery are among her partners in the Pacific Northwest.

The jewelry is made with sterling silver and gold fill, incorporating gemstones chosen for color and weight. Each piece builds an argument about the relationship between organic form and hard material — the stone and the metal, the rough surface and the polished one. Korbaleva designs every piece herself and does most of the making; the work is, in her words, “as fulfilling as creating things with my hands.”