Madjoi Jewels

The Aesthetics of Ethics

Madjoi Jewels represents commitment. It is a Borromean knot formed by creativity, the defense of the environment and respect for people.

As an artist and designer of Madjoi Jewels, Marc Diaz draws inspiration from Arte Povera, which he combines with the Real,  the Symbolic and the Imaginary to give his works a philosophical perspective. This allows her to reclaim contemporary jewelry as a form of expression, transformation and resistance. To make his jewels he uses sustainable and renewable materials, waste or simply plants.

BIOGRAPHY

Marc Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist born in Barcelona in 1968, the year of “imagination to power.” This and being the son of a craftswoman and a computer technician have marked his life and his career.

Given his innate aptitudes, he was fortunate to receive training in Arts and Crafts since he was a child, in disciplines such as music, drawing, oil painting, watercolor, fire enamels or ceramics.

At the age of 20 he trained in goldsmithing under the guidance of his teacher, Esteban Platko Vocigs, and entered the University of Fine Arts of Barcelona. He continued his studies in contemporary jewelry design at Massana and Industrial schools of Barcelona and trained and professionalized in computer graphics.

He held his first individual painting exhibition at the age of 18 in Palma de Mallorca. Three more followed in Barcelona, between 1989 and 1992, in the alternative artistic circuit.

For various reasons, the year 1992 was turbulent for Marc Díaz. He abandoned his studies, his job, Spain... and landed in Brazil, a country through which he traveled for 1 year. This trip changed his life. 

Although he returned to Spain, in 1996 he decided to return to Brazil and lived in several states until 2004. In Brazil he continued to hold painting exhibitions although he dedicated himself mainly to Crafts and Decoration.

Between 2006 and 2008 he designed and produced his first complete collection of contemporary Jewelry based on artistic Recycling and Arte Povera, his most relevant references. An emblematic collection that, under the title “Matter, Physics and Chemistry”, he presented in Barcelona. 

The collection was selected in the international “Enjoia't”  awardsorganized by Orfebres FAD, and in the “The Lab – New European Designers” competition, at the Orhopa Fair in Paris. The collection was based on the recycling of soda cans, on the use of their metals and their shapes.

Marc designed “Matter, Physics and Chemistry” in Brazil, sensitized by the serious situation of abandonment suffered by boys and girls who live alone on the streets, and survive day after day by collecting soda cans from the ground, and then selling them by weight in scrapyards.

He identified the collection with this message of denunciation and with it participated in artistic Recycling festivals such as Rehogar, organized by Makeatuvida (Valencia), Drap Art (Barcelona) and the Night of Art in Palma de Mallorca. With her he also participated in several group exhibitions. The collection was distributed and marketed in jewelry stores in Barcelona, Tarragona, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia.

He was a finalist for the Environment Awards of the Generalitat of Catalonia: “Design for Recycling”, Strategies Modality, in 2009.

Marc has also been an inventor and businessman. He patented the process to obtain an alternative material to wood sheets in a multitude of industrial sectors. A renewable, recycled and recyclable natural material from the pruning of the Cocus Nucifera palm trees. The resulting business project, however, led to his ruin.

Tireless, in 2022 he decided to return to artistic activity and thanks to ethnobotanical research that he carried out in 2016 in the Tramuntana mountains, in Mallorca island, he opted for the creation of a contemporary jewelry brand based on plants. He identified local plants, studied them and developed his own techniques for their treatment and to obtain materials that could be used to produce jewelry.

In 2023 he has designed and produced a first series of rings made with plant fibers and tree resins and has created a personal brand: Madjoi Jewels.

The series of rings that he baptized with the name “Tramuntana Bits” was selected in the Artistar Jewels competition, an event belonging to Milano Jewelry Week 2023, and was exhibited at the Palazzo Bovara in Milan.

With his rings he won one of the three Assamblage Gallery Awards and was a finalist for Best Contemporary Jewelry at MJW 2023.