Born in Australia and based in Munich and Australia, Helen Britton has had 27 solo exhibitions worldwide and is represented in many public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Helen Britton will be in residence from 21 September until 11 October. In Context presents Helen’s work in the context of works by some of the key artists from the early years of her development in Western Australia, including Barbara Bolt, Pippin Drysdale, Nola Farman, Gill Irvine, Else van Keppel, and Philippa O’Brien, alongside her current West Australian collaborators, Justine McKnight and Michelle Taylor. To complete the concept, works of David Bielander and Yutaka Minegishi, both internationally renowned artists and Helen’s Munich studio partners for now over 13 years, will also be on exhibition. The photographer, Simon Bielander, completes this picture with a recent image of the studio atmosphere. This exhibition of over 60 works covers jewellery, fashion, textiles, painting, drawing and ceramics. Helen Britton will give a floor talk on 3 October.
“My work in the studio is a process of direct, intuitive, integration and construction, an open-ended experiment. I am conscious of what I have chosen to incorporate, but am completely immersed in my own process of reinvention and creation that lies well outside the limited boundaries of verbalisation. In my jewellery practice in recent years, I have become more specifically interested in collecting those awkward and sometimes ugly fragments, those hidden beauties, those components that were intended for life as jewellery. I try to provide them with a new opportunity, a chance to sing again or to sing at last. I have a great clamouring collection, all demanding attention, each one such a handful that I keep them tucked away, restless in their boxes, waiting for their day to shin. It is their oily smile, their rugged gesture, the thrust of their metal, the giggle of the plastic, the wink of glass, the jungle of material emotions locked in these fragments, that I am looking to give room for expression”. Helen Britton
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