About

My name is Riley Presta, I am a Hamilton-based jewelry artist transforming discarded metal into wearable pieces. A few years ago, I began collecting thousands of aluminum cans from bars, households and street litter in my city and recycling them in my home furnace. I learned to refine the metal and began using it as casting material.

Normally a practise like this begins with a focus on sustainability, but this one started with a fascination for loud, tactile forms, during a time where my budget didn't support the experimentation with scale at the price of precious metals.

I am interested in the tension between permanence and change, and my work explores the contradictions between them. I am excited by exaggeration and I express this through solid, large objects with a mixture of finished, and unfinished surfaces.