Helen lives just past the TinPot Café in Melbourne, I did managed to get lost finding her place, but I always get lost in that little cluster of streets. Once I found Helen’s place I got to have a close look at her bird creations. They are all hand made and mostly produced on the comfy couch where she is sitting in the portrait. At the moment Helen is studying to be a librarian and has an impressively sorted bookcase too.
For Van Wonderland, Helen has created a pair of Native Hens. I did manage to see these half created when I photographed her and I’m really looking forward to seeing them completed.
You can see examples of her birds in the bookshelf and you can buy some at her etsy store.
Van Wonderland is an exhibition of work by contemporary crafts practitioners exploring a mysterious world of not-quite-real objects and creatures, based upon historic western perceptions of Tasmania (‘Van Diemen’s Land’) as a distant and little-known island at the far reaches of the globe.
This ‘new world’, full of strange and exotic flora and fauna, could be by turns beautiful and sinister – just as the strange Wonderland explored so famously by Lewis Carroll’s Alice.
Step into Van Wonderland and explore the mysteries within. And don’t forget to take your teacup.
Participating artists include Tara Badcock, The Purple Finch, Erin Tappe, Hideyo, Cat Badcock, Ghostpatrol, Megan Perkins, Omar Misa, Helen Goninon, and Anita Dineen with accompanying photography by Alan Moyle (Photobat).
Come to the opening, Friday 18th September 2009 at 6 pm, Design Centre, Tamar Street, Launceston, RSVP by email or by 6331 5505. Exhibition open until the 18th of October.
