JONATHAN Yun’s jewellery designs speak volumes about his passion. Wrought into every intricate line and form are stories of his adventures, interests and inspirations. Every element in his pieces is carefully selected to represent something deeper.

The Penang-based jeweller and artist has been making his mark on women’s accessories the past five years by applying his unique vision of beauty to fine metals and semi-precious stones. He calls his pieces “sculptural jewellery”.

‘‘The inspiration behind each piece says something about me. Each (piece) has to touch me personally and say something about how it came to be,” says the soft-spoken Yun, who graduated from RMIT University, Melbourne, with a degree in fine metals in the early 1990s. “Currently, my focus (when creating jewellery) is on translating my passions into works of art.”

Yun works from his studio in Penang, where each piece of jewellery is sculpted out in jewellers’ wax and then cast in sterling silver. The piece is then hand-finished and polished to reflect its beauty.

While his pieces come in all kinds of fine metals, Yun works more extensively with silver because it holds a special fascination for him. While many people don’t favour silver because it tarnishes easily, this is exactly why he is attracted to it.

“The specialty of silver is that it grows and changes with the wearer. It is an extension of its owner and that really draws me in,” he says.

He adds that he finds the soft patina of silver very alluring as it doesn’t have the hard appearance of white gold or platinum, although it is still considered white metal.

Yun’s passions include a love for nature, an element that pops up time and again in his pieces. The beautiful shapes and forms that exist in nature are painstakingly recreated in elegant detail.

Apart from being a hiker and fern-collector, 45-year-old Yun is also a certified divemaster, and he finds much of his inspiration while indulging in these activities.

“I’m very drawn towards forms in nature,” he explains. “I look for design possibilities in these forms, and how to work them into artistic yet wearable pieces of jewellery. Then, when I’m working on the design, I get inspired by what the piece represents.”

As an example, he talks about how the shapes of various ferns are represented in his designs within his Flora collection.

“The crosier (the coiled end of a fern) speaks so much to me about potentiality and a fresh beginning. That inspires me as I’m working on the piece.”

Within the Flora range, Yun has created a veritable garden of jewellery, with pieces drawing inspiration from ferns, orchids, branches and the heliconia. He has a set of jewellery he calls the Lotus Pond, which includes jewelled likenesses of lotuses, dragonflies, koi fish and frogs.

Some of the more fascinating items within this collection are the Butterfly Wings jewellery, where the vibrant wings of butterflies are encased in resin and set in jewellery the way a precious stone is. Yun discovered this one-of-a-kind method when he was working on a collaborative venture with the Penang Butterfly Farm, and his technique allows him to showcase both sides of the wing.

“I let the wing become the focus of the jewellery. I do add design elements and semi-precious stones, but the main element is the natural beauty of the butterfly,” he explains.

His Underwater collection, on the other hand, boasts a completely different look, with bolder pieces that immediately recall the bounties of the sea. Yun says this collection was sparked by his interest in diving, and he started working on it seven years ago when he hadn’t even starting his jewellery business yet.

“The first thing that caught my eye when I started diving was the sea fan coral, which is so fragile that it sways with the waves. That vision spoke to me so much of fragility, and I really wanted to capture that in a piece,” he says.

Yun also uses other sea creatures such as staghorn and elkhorn corals, nautilus shells, lionfish and stingrays as motifs in his jewellery. The challenge, he says, is retaining their delicate look and proportion without creating a piece that is too fragile for wearing.

His third collection is a departure from his nature-themed pieces, but still focuses on an area he is avidly interested in: the Baba-Nyonya culture. Inspired by the ornate and colourful jewellery of olden-day Nyonya women, Yun began to model designs after this style back in his university days.

“I was amazed at how they could fit so many designs and colours within such a small space, like a kerongsang for instance. It was truly a case of more is more!”

To update the style, Yun created pieces with a streamlined and modern silhouette that featured ornate elements as the focal point. Alongside more traditional stones like yakub, intan, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, he also used semi-precious stones in pastel shades to create a look he calls “quasi-Nyonya”.

“I believe that Nyonya jewellery is an important part of our national heritage, and I want my pieces to remind people again why this particular style is so timeless and beautiful.”

For Yun, it is ultimately about telling a story with his creations. “This is the medium I use to translate my creative vision and energy, and each piece says something about my life.”

Prices start from RM300 (S$128) onwards. The collections are available at Mori Pin boutiques in Bangsar Shopping Centre ( 03-2096 2832) and Bangsar Village II ( 03-2283 6382) in Kuala Lumpur, and Yun’s studio at 88, Armenian Street, Penang ( 04-262 9079).