Heir to a legacy of fine jewelry expertise, ébénist woodworking and the Fine Arts, Martin Spreng leaves, here and there on his jewelry, small winks at his life-path(s). For example, the technique inherited from an old Munich workshop via his father, which he symbolizes with the workshop’s stamp: a little goat he has safeguarded through the years . Or again, the way he approaches jewelry – which is the same way he envisaged wood design in the Xylos collective from 1981 to 2011. An approach that clearly transpires through the way he associates materials.
One notes a character trait in Martin Spreng: that of keeping a close eye on his origins – if only to better surpass them! When he transcribes a melody to decorate a wedding band, it is by engraving squares and rectangles reminiscent of German composer Stockhausen and the graphic notations of his “Piano Pieces” suite….
And although he willingly uses gold, silver and precious gems, he will want to glorify them by introducing titanium into the design. Titanium for its limitless nuances and ruggedness, but also for its lightness – which makes the pieces more wearable. A harmonious study of use, meaning, spirit and matter.
Martin Spreng’s creations are never intentionally figurative, yet much as for abstract- lyrical painters, they always seem to evoke Nature – in its cosmic, telluric or biological dimensions. Offering his own contemplation of the world in a poetic way, somehow reminiscent of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s founding essay “Nature”.
Certainly one the reasons that Martin Spreng’s jewelry always gives off a deeply lyrical vibe: the richness of shapes, the playful confrontations (colors, volumes, genres, patterns) seem to elicit a sense of the marvelous and of the dramatic.