Adam Neeley unveils Dalí’s Garden, surreal gold and titanium high jewelry

Adam Neeley did not begin Dalí’s Garden with a mood board. He began with a lucid dream after cooking from Les dîners de Gala, Salvador and Gala Dalí’s 1973 cookbook, and the result is a high-jewelry collection that feels less like illustration than invention. Neeley said the dream was “so vivid it felt real,” and that tension between imagination and control runs through every piece.

The collection made its debut at PAD Paris in the Jardin des Tuileries during the fair’s April 8 to 12 run, a fitting stage for work that sits between adornment and collectible design. PAD, founded in 1998, is now in its 28th edition and still positions itself as a destination for international design collectors. Neeley’s presentation, shown with Second Pétale Gallery under the direction of Arina Pouzoullic, placed the jewelry squarely in that world of objects meant to be studied as much as worn.

What makes Dalí’s Garden memorable is that Neeley resisted the obvious. There are no melting clocks, no lobster phones, no literal transcription of Dalí’s imagery. Instead, he used anodized titanium to push color into electric blues, violets and greens, then set that steel-like brightness against white gold, rose gold and vivid stones. The effect is surreal without becoming costume, a collection that borrows Dalí’s sense of altered reality and converts it into wearable form.

Second Pétale’s PAD preview made that object-by-object approach clear. Among the named pieces were the Morpho Earrings, from 2025, in sapphire, titanium and white gold, and the Callara Earrings, also from 2025, mixing tourmaline, garnet, diamond, titanium and white gold. Those details matter because they show Neeley building each jewel as a distinct composition rather than a repeatable signature look. The collection also reflects years of development, with Neeley saying it took the better part of five years to bring it together.

Neeley’s larger record gives the Paris debut real weight. He has more than 25 years of experience, opened his Laguna Beach gallery in 2006 and already has work in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection, including his South Sea Glow pendant. JCK says he has 17 AGTA Spectrum Awards and counting, while Rapaport reported that some of his fused gold components can take more than 80 hours to produce. A 2024 Laguna Art Museum exhibition, Modern Alchemy: The Fusion of Art and Nature in the Jewelry Designs of Adam Neeley, curated by Timothy Adams, had already established him as a designer whose work belongs in the museum conversation as much as the showcase.

Dalí’s Garden is now moving from Paris to private appointments and U.S. viewings by appointment at Neeley’s Laguna Beach studio. That path suits the collection: it is not a surreal anecdote with gemstones attached, but a disciplined transformation of dream logic into gold, titanium and stones that hold up under a close look.