Christine Hellyar
| Christine Hellyar | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 New Plymouth, New Zealand |
| Education | Diploma in Fine Arts (Hons) at the Elam School of Art |
| Known for | Sculpture, teaching |
| Website | http://www.christinehellyar.com/ |
Christine Hellyar (born 1947) is a New Zealand artist who makes sculptures and installations.
Hellyar was born in 1947 in New Plymouth. She completed a Diploma in Fine Arts (Hons) at the Elam School of Art in 1970.
Working in both sculpture and installation, Hellyar's work incorporates a wide range of materials, from found natural items such as grass and stones, to clay, fabric and plaster, to latex, lead and bronze for casting.
Over the years consistent themes in Hellyar's work have included 'her celebration of the environment, her interest in people's interaction with nature, the validation of the domestic and a questioning of traditional gender roles'.
At art school she was encouraged to experiment with rubber latex, then a new material. Hellyar was drawn to the properties of the medium, which allowed for precise replication of texture and details, and used latex to cast objects such as leaves and pine cones.
Country Clothesline (1972), now in the collection of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, was one of Hellyar's first major works: it comprises 22 items of clothing dipped in latex and strung along a rope propped up by a pole. There is an element of chance in the work, as there are no instructions as to what order the items should be hung in.
An early exhibition titled Bush Situation (1976) created an environment to surround the viewer with floor pieces and hanging latex casts of vegetation, often stitched together with copper wire. Art historian Priscilla Pitts notes that 'Despite the subtlety of colour and detail in these works, some viewers found the flabby texture and rubbery smell of the latex unpleasant and distinctly unnatural, a less than welcome reminder that this was art, not nature'.
From the late 1970s Hellyar began to work more with found objects and materials such as clay, which were less expensive and more readily available than latex and metal. Writer Warwick Brown describes a 'memorable 1979 exhibition' where Hellyar showed '70 small, soft sculptures made of stitched, unbleached calico enclosing various natural materials. Antennae ventured out of folds and pockets; furry, feathery things hid in cocoons or webs. Each small work had its own identity, and the spectator seemed surrounded by sheltering, reclusive life, gathered in a laboratory for study or experiment'.
In 1982 Hellyar had an exhibition called Shelter at the Auckland City Art Gallery. For this she filled the room entirely with structures created from muslin, flax and twigs, which were plaited, woven and stitched together. The structures resembled traps, lairs or shelters, and were 'inhabited' by 'small creatures made from substances like fur and claws, shells and bark'.
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