PROUDLY PRESENTED BY
ST KILDA ARTS TOURISM ASSOCIATION.
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MY ST KILDA ARTS TOURISM ACCOUNT
The fifth exhibition in our Summer/Autumn 2018 Season – Bare – a quiet escape from surface – features the stunning creations from award-winning, Sydney-based Artist, David Helmers.
In his work for ‘Bare’, David assembles skeletal pods of porcelain. His ethereal work speaks both of fragility and strength in union. A mastery of material allows him creative freedom, showing awareness of restrictions and to revel in possibilities. In making, intuition and improvisation dictates being present and in viewing his work, David wishes to set conceptual language aside and sit with his work. He believes in subordinating the need to intellectualise, in favour of the emotional wellbeing of the viewer, foregrounding being present and empowering the ability to face any upheavals that occur.
‘Of the hundreds of submissions we received for our Summer/Spring 2018 Season, David’s work instantly captured my attention,’ said Geoffrey Williams, Founding Artistic Director of The Laneway Artspace. ‘The art of ceramics is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance, and David’s unique, captivating creations are leading the way.
About David Helmers
David is a masters student at the National Arts school in ceramics and an undergraduate of the Victoria College of the arts. His focus lies in installation work as a means of self-reflection. In an installation last year he responded to how social media networks are dividing society into ‘political Silos’. The installation incorporated porcelain wombs and cellular structures that sat on wire mesh frames, to engage in politics over the barriers we construct to keep ourselves safe. Cells were used where structurally each component relied equally on the other. His Biomorphic works spoke both of the fragility of the human condition and strength when they unite. David will undertake a residency at the Shigaraki Ceramic Culture Park at the end of this year.
In 2017, he was a sessional ceramics lecturer at the University of Newcastle and a finalist at the Deakin university small sculpture prize. He has exhibited nationally, won the Wangaratta sculpture biennale in 2008, and has his work in the Chang Chun sculpture museum in China.
David is a board member of the Australian Ceramics Association, the peak national body for the studio ceramics sector. He also enjoys working in the community sector devising projects for participants with limited motor function.