The Living Trace Award from Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Fair at the XV Florence Biennale 2025

GIA gemologist, jewelry artist Ms. Paloma Sanchez has won The Living Trace Award from Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Fair at the XV Florence Biennale, and has been invited as one of the Guests of Honour at the upcoming Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Art Fair in London. She is also the first artist to receive this distinction at the Florence Biennale.

The award, born from the partnership between two of the world’s leading contemporary art exhibitions, the Florence Biennale and Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Fair (London, UK), is equivalent to the “Lorenzo il Magnifico” President’s Award of the Florence Biennale.

Ms. Paloma with Ms. Eleonora Varotto, art historian, head curator of the Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Fair, Mr. Piero Celona, founder and vice president of the Florence Biennale; Mr. Jacopo Celona, director of the Florence Biennale

Cluster Contemporary Jewellery Fair (London, UK) is a premier art fair, community, and creative house celebrating contemporary jewelry as an art form, operating under Cluster organization founded in 2016. It has promoted international events in all disciplines, including illustration, crafts, contemporary jewelry, contemporary art, photography, and print, celebrating diversity, creativity, and the power of artistic expression.

Beyond hosting fairs, Cluster fosters collaboration and artistic exchange through talks, workshops, career support, and curated projects, standing as a pioneering platform for innovation and artistic dialogue in the contemporary art world.

Paloma’s works not only captivated audiences from around the world but also drew the special attention and acclaim of distinguished experts, including Mr. Piero Celona, founder and vice president of the Florence Biennale; Mr. Jacopo Celona, director of the Florence Biennale; Mr. Paolo Penko, master goldsmith and international jury member of the Florence Biennale; Mr. Giovanni Cordoni, event manager and curator of the Florence Biennale; and Prof. Chao Ge, artist and winner of the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Ms. Paloma with Mr. Piero Celona, founder and vice president of the Florence Biennale

Ms. Paloma with Mr. Jacopo Celona, director of the Florence Biennale

Ms. Paloma with Mr. Paolo Penko, master goldsmith and international jury member of the Florence Biennale

Ms. Paloma with Mr. Giovanni Cordoni, event manager and curator of the Florence Biennale

Ms. Paloma with Prof. Chao Ge, artist and winner of the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award

The Dialogue Between Light and Darkness

In Paloma’s meticulously crafted artistic world, the cave is not absence but origin. 

Within the stillness of a cave, where silence gathers and vision surrenders to shadow, two beams of light emerge. From the depths, Grotta Azzurra and Tears of Antarctica reveal themselves—two meditations on the eternal dialogue between darkness and light.

Grotta Azzurra embodies the depth of darkness—the indigo before dawn, the inner sea where light first dares to appear. Its tanzanite heart and diamond stalactites glimmer faintly in the void, evoking that suspended moment when illumination is born from stillness.

Opposite, Tears of Antarctica carries the promise of dawn. Its melted gold edges and crystalline surfaces capture the fragile power of hope, the instant when frozen matter yields to light. Within the cave, its radiance unfolds like a breath of renewal—the slow awakening that restores movement to what was once silent and inert.

Together, they transform the cave into a living metaphor: a space where darkness protects and light redeems, where the Earth’s raw substance becomes a vessel of consciousness and beauty. The installation invites viewers to step inside the rhythm of creation itself—to witness the sublime not as contrast, but as union, where every beam of light carries the memory of the shadow from which it arose.

The Artwork

Necklace. Tanzanite crystal (150ct), pear shape and round brilliant cut diamonds (12.596ct in total), set in 18kt white gold.

Grotta Azzurra was born of contrast: the cool stillness of a hidden sea cave and the sudden shimmer of light that pierces its shadowed depths. A singular 150-carat Tanzanite, untouched by the cutter's hand, becomes a sacred relic. Encasing the stone, cascading formations of white diamonds and sculpted 18kt white gold evoke crystalline stalactites, shimmering like captured rays of light breaking through cavernous obscurity. Here, darkness is not absence but presence—framing and amplifying the brilliance of illumination.

Earrings/Necklace/Ring. Faden quartz from Pakistan, 18kt yellow gold.

Born at the fracture lines of the Earth, the Tears of Antarctica reflects the fragile balance between creation and decay. The Faden Quartz, with its thread-like vein formed through rupture, resembles stalactites and stalagmites reaching for each other—a silent metaphor for a world on the edge of connection and collapse.

Molten gold flows across the translucent crystal like sunlight mourning the melting heart of the poles. Between light and darkness, endurance and erosion, the piece captures a moment suspended between creation and disappearance—a whisper of Earth’s resilience, and its fragility.

This exhibition marks another significant milestone in her international artistic journey, further affirming her place as a leading figure in contemporary jewelry art.