De Quin exhibited these silverware vessels as part of the group show ‘Mindful of Silver’, Goldsmiths' Hall, London in 2011. De Quin and the other 11 artists were characterised as 'leading contemporary British silversmiths'. The vessels exhibited were a series of seven specially created works, based on de Quin’s sustained interest in the practices of collecting, arranging and display. This series is a response to de Quin’s longstanding research into the theme of the ‘vessel’.
De Quin’s concern for displaying the maker’s process as a critical component of the artefact brought a new question to viewers of the exhibition. This counters the conventions that designate an exhibition as ‘point of sale or archive’ and brings the making/construction to bear on the meaning of display as one moment from a process of construction and reflection, instead embodying the dialogical relation between maker and ‘receiver’ of the work.
Starting from the painterly modernism of Ben Nicholson and Giorgio Morandi, de Quin takes the enigma of the relationship between two- and three-dimensional figures as the point of reflection on the meaning and experience of ‘containment’ through form. The research represents part of de Quin’s silversmithing practice developed over a period of more than 20 years.
Mindful of Silver was accompanied by a catalogue of the same name published by The Goldsmiths’ Company (2011). The exhibition was reviewed in The Times, Crafts Magazine, World of Interiors, and the Evening Standard in the UK, and in 18 Karati (Italy) and Arte y Rioja (Spain), among others.