Flóra Vági 2026

Flóra Vági

Flóra Vági was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1978. After graduating, she studied classical goldsmithing at a vocational school. Shortly afterwards, she moved to Mexico, where she worked while deepening her knowledge of jewellery techniques in silver.

From 2001, she attended courses led by Manuel Vilhena and Manfred Bischoff at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School in Florence, Italy, where she studied for three years. She later moved to London to obtain her Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, which she completed in 2008.

Her artistic practice is rooted in a material-led inquiry that privileges experimentation and transformation. Embracing processes that often yield unexpected results, she cultivates a dynamic dialogue between intention and chance — a hallmark of her aesthetic approach, which balances on the verge of the natural and the man-made.

Surface and colour are central to her practice, contributing to the distinctly organic character of her pieces. Vági deliberately enhances these qualities, imbuing her work with a sculptural presence that frequently transcends the conventional boundaries of jewellery. Many of her pieces function simultaneously as autonomous sculptural objects.

The questions she primarily explores in her work relate to presence, contemplation, and the observation of time — while reflecting on the information that her chosen materials hold and convey.

Her pieces are held in both private and public collections worldwide, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the CODA Museum in the Netherlands, and the Dallas Museum of Art in the USA, among others.

Some of the accolades, she was awarded inlcude the European Prize for Applied Arts in Belgium in 2012 and received the Jury’s Special Mention at the Cheongju Craft Biennale in Korea in 2021.

Flóra currently lives and works in Budapest, Hungary, where she serves as Head of the Designer-Maker Master’s Programme at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.

MEET FLÓRA VÁGI

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"Arvo Pärt’s works and the dark yet passionate Estonian heritage have resonated with me for a long time. Though not having had any musical education, I found a way to connect to his music through a more spiritual and intuitive way.

Pärt’s pieces evoke for me a landscape of states and transitions: emptiness and fullness, the celestial and the earthly, decay and rebirth. His compositions recall in me notions of life cycles, fragility of nature, reflection, simplicity and universal connection. These sensibilities form the emotional and conceptual ground where my works can engage.

Contemplation is the common thread between Pärt’s music and my practice. The works exists in a continuous balancing act—between heights and depths, light and darkness, joy and desperation, in a fragile threshold between the human and the otherworldly, where vulnerability and transcendence coexist.

While listening to Pärt’s music, in my head vivid yet restrained images surface: natural browns reminiscent of fallen leaves, dark soil-like blacks, and flashes of cosmic brightness. I imagine sparkling black snow suspended between falling and dissolving. Moments of profound quiet are interrupted by sharp, weighty sounds that simultaneously burden and uplift. This tension mirrors my approach to material and form: creating objects that feel pure and untouched, yet marked by the silent torment and resilience inherent in human existence.

My jewellery becomes a space for stillness and reflection—a tangible meditation on impermanence, transformation, and the delicate beauty found within in-between states."

Flóra Vági