Gaetano Pesce is no stranger to working with flexible resin. The Italian-born, New York?based architect, who has been producing provocative furniture and buildings for nearly half a century, has molded the material into vases that appear to be melting, off-kilter tabletop pieces, and asymmetrical chairs and tables with a soft touch. But he has recently been using urethane resin to create pieces on a more intimate scale?necklaces, bracelets, brooches, and rings.

Thirty of those pieces are now on view in the first U.S. exhibition of Pesce’s jewelry at the Gallery at Reinstein|Ross in New York through February 20. All of them have a riotous sense of experimentation. “I do not oblige the material to follow my whim,” says Pesce, who claims that his design decisions account for only part of each piece’s final form. “The rest is the material?it decides the finished shape. Sometimes, I surprise myself.”

Well aware that many jewelry shoppers expect precious metals and stones, Pesce hopes his colorful creations bring a different sense of value to the table. “They’re precious in a contemporary way,” he says. “It’s an ordinary material, but the pieces become extraordinary.”

Through February 20 at the Gallery at Reinstein|Ross , 30 Gansevoort Street, New York