Gillian Finlay grew up in Hong Kong and moved to Scotland in 1988 to study Jewellery and Silversmithing at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. She graduated in 1992 with a first-class honours degree. Over the next ten years, Gillian exhibited her work at venues across the UK including The Crafts Council Gallery Shop, London, The Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow and had her first solo exhibition at The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. Her work has been featured in The Independent and The Herald. After starting a family and moving to London, Gillian took up silk painting and trained as a florist.  A move back to Scotland, saw her return to full-time jewellery making. She set-up her new Edinburgh studio in 2020. In 2021, she was selected for the Craft Scotland Compass: Emerging Maker programme and in 2022, participated in the Getting Started programme at the Goldsmiths’ Centre.

The Scaffold Collection of gold and silver jewellery is inspired by the extraordinary bamboo scaffolding that captivated Gillian Finlay throughout her childhood in Hong Kong. The ever-changing skyline with its myriad skyscrapers enveloped by bamboo always fascinated her. Gillian draws inspiration from these distinctive scaffold structures, each with their own individual natural flow, finding beauty in their repetitive and complex patterns.  She reinterprets these structures of her childhood by folding, pleating and pinching paper-thin strips of precious metal wire; reimagining them into more playful, fluid and flowing forms.  Each unique piece of jewellery reflects the contradictions in these bamboo scaffold frameworks - they are strong and structural, yet light and intricate.