Marie Jianu - Romania
Marie Jianu
Designer biography:
Marie Jianu is a Romanian jewelry artist. A graduate in International Economic Relations (2004), she began studying jewelry in 2012 at Assamblage School with David Sandu and Andreia Gabriela Popescu. In 2020, Jianu expanded her technical vocabulary by training with Italian master, Fabrizio Acquafresca, making chasing and repoussé the cornerstone of her practice. Her fully handcrafted pieces explore metal plasticity, through forms, textures, and volumes. Her dedication to craft excellence earned her the “Award for Excellence in Technique” at ROJW 2023, selected by Bernadette Pinet-Cuoq, President of the European Federation of Jewelry and, she was nominated as finalist for “Design Newcomer of the Year” at INHORGENTA AWARD 2025, Munich. She has exhibited at Romanian Jewelry Week (2020-2025) and Milano Jewelry Week (2024-2025).
Collection concept:
Memento Vivere
I initially intended to name this collection Memento Mori. However, as I sketched, I realized I was not seeking to evoke the shadow of the end, but something far more challenging, the clarity of being truly present. Memento Vivere is a deliberate inversion of a Baroque formula. Where Memento Mori asks the viewer to remember death, this collection asks its wearer to remember the act of being awake. The collection takes as its conceptual anchor the patristic notion of nepsis—the watchful attention described in the Eastern ascetic tradition as a sustained, alert state of mind, distinct from both tension and repose. Nepsis is not contemplation, it is closer to the posture of a sentry, or of a hunter at the threshold of action—the mind held in a state of active clarity. The collection translates this interior posture through sober lines and sharp edges.
