ÁNGEL BIN VARO
Text: Willa Meredith
Photography: Caroline Lucia Smagagz
MEXICO CITY / February 2024
The Mexican jeweler Angel Bin Varo takes an intuitive and primal approach in realizing his surreal, masterful designs. Uncomplicatedly beautiful on the surface, each one-of-a-kind piece is also a crystalization of his personal symbolism. We spoke about luxury, authenticity, the creative potential of shadow work, and his restaurant, Husman, a new and original Scandinavian bistro in Mexico City's Juarez neighbourhood.
WILLA MEREDITH — When did you first start paying attention to jewelry?
ÁNGEL BIN VARO — My parents have worked in the industry since I was six years old. They had the idea to start the business together because they wanted to spend more time together. They were importing from Italy and selling here in Mexico. I went with my mom to work every day, and she taught me the process with customers and how to sell. So, learning the business came before I became interested in designing.
Did that come naturally to you? — No, it was hard. I'm an introvert - it’s never been very easy for me to connect with most people.
Was she trying to push you to open up? — More so that she was trying to teach me the business. She didn't go to school, but she had these sales skills naturally. She’s a master with sales, so she wanted to pass them to me. But then there came a point where I was really uncomfortable selling, I didn't connect with the design. One day, I realized I was doing it because I had to, not because I wanted to. And then when I was 25, I had an existential crisis. I was thinking, why should I sell people things that they don’t need?
Were you troubled by the luxury aspect?
— I guess I thought I wasn't giving any deeper value to people than the material itself.
What changed, then? — I spoke with my uncle. He is my favorite person, like a spiritual counselor to me. He was an architect and engineer. The construction industry he was working in was very corrupt, and he lost faith in humanity at one point. But he found his purpose, which was in philosophy and grasping existence through meditation. So he quit his job, quit following social rules. He got me into non-dualism, but at the same time, paradoxically gave me the understanding that we exist on a physical plane for a reason. If we were meant to be purely spiritual beings we would not exist in this shape. So, I’ve found a different balance than him. I think we're meant to enjoy our senses and the material world. There is a reason we were given a physical form and given sensory perception.
So it was this philosophy that helped you out of your crisis? — He helped me understand that everything is a game. That there is nothing serious about life. I realized I can be true to myself, and make it all work for myself without losing my essence and integrity. What I sell is something that people want, something that makes them feel good. It’s become a means to an end and is also something that I really love to do. I realized that I actually love the stones, and I became an expert. And then I had another emotional breakdown. That's when I started discovering my darkness, and learning to be in touch with it. My ego died and I had to rebuild myself when I was 27. It took me two years. It was enlightening, but also very hard.
Was it a breakup?
— Yeah. It was aligned with my crisis with my career. My career was about being part of the family business, then I realized I didn't like it. I felt I wasn't giving people substance. It wasn’t about the work or the product, I just wasn't connected to it. I was feeling lost, albeit on my way to finding myself.
So how did you reconnect with jewelry? Or rather connect with it fully for the first time? — I think reconnect is the right word, because I was working with it before, and then I realized all of a sudden, in my deeper layers, that it was a choice and a decision for me to do whatever I want. We can be whatever we want. It's limitless. To flow in whatever feels right to you is when things come. I reconnected with jewelry when I was 29. I decided that maybe I should start designing.
Were you drawing before or expressing yourself artistically before then?
— No, never. I had no artistic career before that. It's weird that I started designing. I went to school for business, I had no foundation to be an artist. It was spontaneous. It came all of a sudden, all at once.
After you started to explore your shadow side in therapy? — Yes, exactly. Everything came up after that. I found my passion in developing my emotional intelligence and the connection I have with myself. Because the more I knew myself, the more I understood the outside world. That's when it became more interesting to interact with the external world.
What were your first designs like?
— [laughs] I heard somewhere that everything is a copy of a copy, of a copy, of a copy, infinitely. It makes so much sense. Everything has a reference.
It's funny to hear you say that because I've never seen jewelry like yours. Have you? — No, never [laughs].
They're like dream shapes. They’re sort of recognizable, but also jarring shapes. Very surreal. Where do you find them? — My designs before were references. I took something I liked then changed them a bit. I modified commercial jewelry that I saw or owned. I would start by adding a stone here, polishing a bit there, and so on. It's interesting the words you said, it resonates with me on a deeper level. Now, I take references from physics, architecture and spirituality - but what does spirituality look like? It's not a shape.
Is this [raw block of wax on the desk] the starting point for a spontaneous sculpting process, rather than being the material for predetermined designs?
— Yes, exactly. It’s very spontaneous. It interests me how life exists in everything. Our brain is programmed to only perceive physical shapes, not the underlying life and energy that exists in everything. We don’t have the physical capacity to see beyond the world full of prototypical, qualifiable shapes. But I see life in stones. That’s what has helped me. We can only see it when we are connected. When I travel inside first is when I can understand the external world. So that's what lets me perceive these shapes. Remember the experiment I told you about from Chladni, the vibrations?
The sonic frequencies that generate shapes in sand? — Yeah. This idea informed one of my collections, called “Alpa Camasca,” which in the Inca language means living body or animated earth. This collection includes the pieces inspired by the shapes made in sand through sound vibrations. After I saw this experiment, I became interested in how matter and the earth can be shaped by frequencies and vibrations.
So wait, your designs come from your inquiry into the non-physical world? — Yes, exactly. I’m interested in the world's underlying energy that is shapeless.
Do you ever dream them? — No, it's very difficult to remember my dreams. It happens more when interacting during the day. I'm just driving, riding my bicycle, and then ideas, shapes, and visions kind of resonate. They are mostly spontaneous shapes. When I think less is when I come to a better outcome.
So, your process is very direct.
— Exactly. So when I design, it comes straight from my subconscious, almost as if I was hypnotized. I just take the pencil. I have come to develop three different styles of jewelry, the one I just told you about, and two others. The second is called ‘Constant Flow.’ It's linear and fluid, like time, with raw texture and loops. The idea behind this is life’s forward motion. I play with shapes until they are balanced and feel complete. The third current of my jewelry is called ‘Brut.’ It comes from brutalism. It's more architectural and structured than the other two collections. This collection is about the separate parts and materials of a piece, and the difficulty of assembling them together. The process translates and physically represents its underlying idea of integrating your multiple parts - your dark and your light side, for example. If you can see on this ring here, there are layers, or levels of red gold and silver. The challenge here is to integrate a different type of level or materials that have different fusion points. One level could be really raw. The other could be on the other side of the spectrum, very polished and geometrical. These were extremely difficult to make. There's a technical complexity to this collection.
I love the juxtaposition between this perfect diamond, the raw surface on one side, and the polished surface on the other —That's what my whole work is about, juxtaposition. Brut is also an expression of myself. It’s the most personal collection of mine. In materials and nature we can find raw stones, or very well cut stones. I can be very evolved, and in other ways, not at all. So I represent myself through the juxtaposition of a super polished material beside a raw one, for example. It’s about an embrace of your rawness, your primal aspects, and at the same time, the most elevated and spiritual aspects.
On the topic of integrating dualities, how did you reconcile your dilemma of rejecting materialism and making fine jewelry?
— Well [laughs]. For example, I love Egyptian culture. They would use materials like gold and other minerals to prepare themselves for the afterlife. And I do believe that certain types of materials are sacred and are meant to be in this world for a certain type of communication, and for transcendence. There’s a reason beyond the physical that these materials have been pursued and adored by all humankind throughout history. They’ve been used as tools to receive information from a source, like a talisman.
Talismanic is definitely a word that comes up when I see your work, especially after hearing you speak about it. Do you look at your pieces as talismans?
— Yeah, completely.
I love crystals and stones. I’ll carry rose quartz if I’m going through a breakup, for example [laughs]. Even when I was little, I had good luck rings and things like that. I remember thinking of them as talismans before I understood the concept. I think the understanding that physical materials have an underlying energy and power is a primal thing. — Exactly, we know these things without being conscious of that knowledge. We’re so used to understanding life through interpretation of information that we see through our brain, but not through our feelings or energies. We’re always surrounded by energies, always interacting with them. But, we're skeptical about them because we can’t see or qualify them. We all know there's something special about a crystal or stone that goes beyond the physical, we just don't acknowledge it intellectually.
It's something that's not best understood intellectually. — No, it can’t be. How I conciliate the aspects of spirituality and being a human being, living on the physical plane - is that part. There are some things that are not meant to be understood, only apprehended intuitively. My work is concerned with how I can translate these feelings, visions, and intuitive knowledge into a material way. I select every stone I use individually. I don’t buy stones in bulk, I buy them one by one. For me, each one transmits a special energy. My creative process starts with the stone, and then comes the design. I'm not forcing, or thinking about what I can do with this stone. It's more that I see them, and then I know what to do.
Instead of imposing your will, you let the raw material guide you. — Exactly. Everything has to be natural. I don't work with anything treated. Sometimes gems are heated to make the color stronger, or to clarify the stone. I like to work with top quality, which is a measure of how rare a stone is. Stones are more expensive the more rare they are. And with that comes the appreciation of all the natural processes that took place to bring the stone to you. Because that mountain has these minerals, it gives this hue. For example, boron will give a blue hue and nitrogen will give a yellow hue. A collection of natural factors combined together make the stones. And it’s the same for humans. To me, these stones are just as special as humans. My clientele understands that, too.
So, it sounds like your approach is rooted in your exploration of non-dualism.
— It also comes from shadow work, and my exploration from things in imagination that I’m certain about, but don’t know for sure. So that's what I'm trying to explore. My proposal is to materialize the way I see existence, then to transform these perceptions into reality at the same time. The same time that I take as a reference things that resonate with me, for example, I love surrealism.
Before I forget, what’s the other thing that you do? [laughs] — Right. [laughs] My good friend Alex and his family invited me to be part of an extraordinary culinary project. He’s Mexican/Swedish. We're really close. He introduced me to his family, we get along really well and have been traveling together since then. They always invite me on family trips. I even call his mom my second mother.
So work for you has always been a family affair — Yeah. The concept came because we both work in the luxury industry. We acknowledge that crises come, and that in those times we can't sell jewelry or furniture. But people will always want to eat. We have similar tastes and aesthetics, which is what made us connect on the business aspect. First it started as a cafe, but it’s now become a restaurant/ It's a fusion of Scandinavian and French. I call it Scandibistro.
Husman means ‘man of the house,’ right? — Yes, his father is an amazing cook. He’s always cooking for holidays, Christmas, etc. His talent and these moments we share as an extended family is something we brought to Husman. It’s not only a nice cuisine and concept, but it's also a place where you feel a cozy environment. There is nothing else like it in the city. And we have the jazz nights.
This Thursday?
— Yeah. Every other Thursday.
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