Wallace Chan
Wallace Chan’s jewelry is a reflection of his dedication to the jeweler’s art. His love of the natural world and attention to the most minute details is immediately obvious in his work. Chan was born in Fuzhou, South Eastern China, in 1956 moving to Hong Kong just five years later. At 13 he was forced to drop out of school to start earning money to help support his family. He worked a variety of jobs before becoming and apprentice as a gemstone carver. Initially Chan was frustrated by his lack of skill and devoted his evenings to practice, sometimes not leaving the workshop until midnight. His tenacity paid off and at 17 years old when he founded his own gem carving workshop with a small loan from his father which he used to purchase a carving machine. Chan has even designed and create many of his own carving tools which have allowed him to develop a range of unique techniques. His own cut, the Wallace Cut, was perfected in 1987 after years of work. The carving technique creates an illusion in transparent gem materials by combining faceting and intaglio to create a finely detailed three dimensional face or figure. Chan carves each piece with a modified dentist's tool under water so as to disperse the heat caused by the high speed tool thereby protecting his valuable gems. Yih Shun Lin a Taiwanese art collector recognized Chan's exceptional artistic creativity and became his patron and mentor. He commissioned him to make the Great Stupa, a one meter high shrine in gold with crystal and rubies to house Buddha’s tooth for a temple in Taiwan. Chan was provided with the financial support and was able to experiment freely. With this he turned his attention to metallurgy. His focus was on titanium to utilize the strength, lightness and amazing color possibilities of the metal. He spent eight years experimenting in smelting, casting, bending and blending the metal and succeeded in being able to work titanium. This further facilitated his jeweled visions as he was now able to create strong, lightweight jewels. Chan became the first Asian designer to be invited to exhibit his work at the prestigious Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris in 2012. There he sold a necklace set with a cabochon of imperial jadeite for 56 million Euros. He has exhibited at both TEFAF in Maastricht and London’s Masterpiece Fair and in 2015 he presented his ‘Heritage in Bloom’ necklace. It was created using twenty four D color internally flawless diamonds which were all cut from the same rough, the Cullinan Heritage. The original rough was an exceptionally rare 507.55ct Type IIa rough diamond. Chan, as of today has two workshops, one in Hong Kong and one in Macau where he employs a small group of highly skilled and dedicated craftsmen. There they produce a limited number of pieces of each year.
