Shows & Exhibitions
Atlanta Contemporary Jewelry Show
March 8-9, 2025
Juried Exhbition and Sale
Bring on the Gems juried exhibition 2023 and 2024
SNAG X San Diego: 51st Conferance
Adorned Spaces Juried Exhibition - June 5-9, 2024
WE ARE SNAG: Anthology Ed. 4 2024
METALmorphosis Juried Exhibition
Colorado Metalsmithing Association [CoMA]
Sept 27 -Oct 26, 2024
The Art Students League of Denver

Reviews
The Museum of Alternative Jewellery
United Kingdom
January 16, 2025
Earthy jewels and stark geometric metals and wrapped up in TONS of texture with the odd kiss of Keum Boo on the side?
There can only be ONE, Pals, and her name is Lesley Aine Mckeown.
Since 1984, this prolific art jeweller has flown the flag HARD for the minimalist-abstract subset of contemporary wearable art, creating works that collide fiery boulder opals with concentric satellite dish formations of polished silver, positively CUBIST pendants of mixed metals spliced with untamed, grungy rock formations and hyper- stylised astrological orrerys in ghostly dendritic agate with orbiting planets of gold and cut peridot…
If French sculptor Fernand Leger were still alive, he would 100% fill his Pinterest board with early McKeown pieces, no joke!
In recent years, Lesley has sanded off a few of her Neo Brutalist edges and moved towards something that we MIGHT even dare to call Neo Nouveau; a style that keeps some of the stark geometry of abstract sculpture but offsets them with the fluid lines and organic shapes of palmate leaves and feral, skeletal branches.

THIS pendant (elegantly entitled ‘Cornucopia’) is a PRIME example of Lesley’s latest foray into this newer, LEAFIER division of metalwork; and the material contrasts are pure FIRE! A perfect black circlet of polished ebony (cut from the body of a vintage clarinet!) is surmounted by a breathtaking hand-carved oak leaf of umber-hued Brazilian Druzy, an exquisite cabochon of mossy dendritic agate and a knobby hand-fabricated sterling silver twig. The finishing touches? A single, brilliant-cut celery toned green Mali garnet and five TEENY tiny, lichen-like bimetal cups brushed with buttery 22ct gold. Oak leaves? Lichen cups? DENDRITIC AGATE?!
You have my heart, Lesley!