Helen Wyatt
Quandamooka
About the artist
Helen Wyatt is currently completing a research-based Masters of Visual Arts at Queensland College of Art. In the last twelve months she has exhibited in the Triple Parade Shanghai Jewellery Biennale; Inhabiting Space at the Glasshouse, Port Macquarie Regional Gallery and is currently in the Australian Touring Show USE. Her work references sites in transition where nature and industry intersect. For State of Shine she takes an aerial view of jewel-like islands in Moreton Bay /Quandamooka but bear the traces of settlement structure. She writes Visual Arts reviews for ArtsHub and curates a window gallery in Evans St Balmain, Sydney.
Helen Wyatt is currently completing a research-based Masters of Visual Arts at Queensland College of Art. In the last twelve months she has exhibited in the Triple Parade Shanghai Jewellery Biennale; Inhabiting Space at the Glasshouse, Port Macquarie Regional Gallery and is currently in the Australian Touring Show USE. Her work references sites in transition where nature and industry intersect. For State of Shine she takes an aerial view of jewel-like islands in Moreton Bay /Quandamooka but bear the traces of settlement structure. She writes Visual Arts reviews for ArtsHub and curates a window gallery in Evans St Balmain, Sydney.
Artwork blurb
Flying over Moreton Bay, Queensland, I am stunned by the unique beauty and strangeness of island forms that float on a shallow ‘bath’ of sub-tropical water. This is Quandamooka – land and sea of traditional custodians.
There are structures embedded even in these wild places: patchworks of land, fences, roads. The colours, glimmer of the water and the luminosity of the sand are striking, but it is the flatness of the highly textured scrubby surfaces that physically define these islands and draw me in to look more deeply.
My four wearable landscapes reference these elements. I exploit the two-dimensional qualities by drawing with my saw and I also honour the brooch form by bringing a third dimension to the shapes using the hydraulic press. Shadows and reflections are designed to draw in the eye and invite the viewer to engage in and around the work as stand alone sculptures.
Flying over Moreton Bay, Queensland, I am stunned by the unique beauty and strangeness of island forms that float on a shallow ‘bath’ of sub-tropical water. This is Quandamooka – land and sea of traditional custodians.
There are structures embedded even in these wild places: patchworks of land, fences, roads. The colours, glimmer of the water and the luminosity of the sand are striking, but it is the flatness of the highly textured scrubby surfaces that physically define these islands and draw me in to look more deeply.
My four wearable landscapes reference these elements. I exploit the two-dimensional qualities by drawing with my saw and I also honour the brooch form by bringing a third dimension to the shapes using the hydraulic press. Shadows and reflections are designed to draw in the eye and invite the viewer to engage in and around the work as stand alone sculptures.
Follow the artist via, Facebook @F Tanner BakerPublic, Instagram @ftannerbakerFacebook, contact [email protected]