Environment 

Barbara Uderzo defines her production "contemporary jewel", where the adjective acts as a bridge between the object and its signifier, residing in contemporary art. The contemporary jewel incorporates an artistic sign in the economy of an object of use. The "contemporary" sign in the work of BU is the conceptual element that regulates the planning, by thematic series, and the perception of the product, an open work that enriches itself in the relationship with the spectator and requires the intellectual participation of the beneficiary/buyer. 
Frequently reviewed in the specialized press and in magazines of contemporary art, the jobs of BU are often defined through the pop category, and the emphasis is put on the lucid irony and the contemporary culture quotations that appear in the product/jewel. The artistic operation of Barbara Uderzo is instead of a conceptual matrix, a job of linguistic reconstruction of art categories into the categories of design, where the "cult value" of the work of art is popularized in the "aesthetical-functional value" of the ring as an object of personal use. In the process of democratization, the object ring and its personal biographical references take the place of the "high way" of the artistic tradition. 

Foundation / Matter of experience 

"I realize my jewels almost always with poor materials, such as silver (for metals), wood, plastics, steel, paper, sugar. From the formal point of view one could say, however, that the main theme of my search, the visible link among all of my jewels, is the essence of matter, the organicity. "Materials used by Barbara Uderzo articulate, in the succession of productive series, a discourse on organicity and on psychology. The institutional opulence of precious metals is replaced by the plasticity of silver - worked out with industrial processes - to pass to the agglutinative qualities of coloured plastics, where objects of pop iconography are inserted. Also the tactile qualities of wood - alive subject exalted by real plants - are emphasized. At a later time, Barbara Uderzo realizes totally conceptual works, in which the critical consciousness of the artist replaces completely the handicraft aspect: stones simply mounted on rings without any workmanship or put together in necklaces conceived as landscapes. The jobs realized for the show "Glucogiello" in Turin use chocolate to build necklaces and rings, a material that arouses "The primitive, common and childish desire to decorate oneself with sweet jewels, to wear but also to consume" (Dada Rosso). 

Design without sketch 

"In my work, the project cannot be graphic; I dont'use sketches because I am interested in three-dimensional organic forms and it doesn't make sense to try to define them with a pencil or with absurd computer geometries." 
"The project is a more complex thing, that goes from the collection of materials, information, reflections to the creation of a history, which gives its title to the work." 
The techniques used by Barbara Uderzo include the electroforming industrial process (used in this case to create unique pieces, "real microscultures"), wax modeling, aiming at creating "fluid, irregular and informal organic forms", the carving of wood, and the technique of the selective assemblage for the works realized with minerals. "The most interesting aspect for me, apart the sensory one involved in handling, filing, sniffing etc., is the organicity of materials".

Show 

For her production of contemporary jewels, Barbara Uderzo reworks concepts, forms, materials and techniques in a climax of spectacular thematic series. 
Blob Rings explore the iconographic side of popular culture. Realized in coloured plastics, they incorporate pop micro-objects, such as very small coffeepots or motorcycles, with an omnivorous capacity worthy of the famous magma from which they take their name. 
Conceived in 1999 as action painting in three-dimensional form, Splash Rings, made by electroformed silver, are "Forms that try to stick to the body, like stains of matter on the body." 
Snarks Rings have a narrative character, instead. Inspired to the strange and fantastic creature of the famous novel by Lewis Carroll, they have "exuberant and flamboyant forms, reminding sand castles done with the technique of dripping the sand, or the volcanos in eruption." 
Deinos Rings are the spectacular result of "A study on the anatomical, organic, and ergonomic forms; they are rings that well suit hand spaces and that have besides a tactile value. They are forms more suited to touch than to see." 
The CandyCandle, Succulent Rings and Mineral Rings series are naturalistic in nature. 
CandyCandle Rings, candle-rings of surreal and coloured geological forms, once lit turn themselves into bonsai-craters, with wax flows on the hand-city of the owner. 
Succulent Rings suggest the same kind of participation by the owner to the life of the ring: here it involves watering a very small plant grafted in the wooden ring – shaped in gestalt forms of primitive beauty. 
In the Rocky Chains series, some faceted, rough silver modules form the rings of a mountain cordillera, forming an astonishing necklace. 
Mineralia consists of a series of rings and necklaces realized in 2004 using stones picked up in a trip along the Mediterranean coasts. The process of workmanship is totally replaced by the activity of the artist, who selects and picks up her work in the "deposits" of nature and does nothing more than contextualizing it differently, proposing landscapes in the form of jewels. 
The Glucojewels and the Bijoux-chocolats arouse the interest of the public and the press for their work-happening conception, in which the contemplation of the work of art and its consumption (rings and necklaces are edible) mutually exclude.