Helen Britton | The Story So Far
Between 2017 and 2019 Helen traveled three times to Australia to document the house of her great Aunt and Godmother Kath Carr on the Clarence river (Ngunitiji, Yaegl Country). Kath taught Helen how to make collages with pressed Australian flowers that she had collected, or with metal fillings from the lathe in the shed, to paint on porcelain which was her greatest hobby, and to make jewellery. Her house was full of wonders, shells, gemstones, driftwood, dried seaweed and fish. When she died her house was locked and left completely intact. Helen’s detailed photographic investigation was a journey back to the beginnings of her creative practice.
The Story So Far takes as its starting point this photographic essay creating a network of connections between that time and this. The work comments on the rich and complex world of country women, of a time of creativity and frugality that formed Helen’s early experience of Australia, of lost possibility, and of a colonial past and present, still so deeply problematic. New works including painting, installation, jewellery, drawings and objects feature in the exhibition alongside the first showing of the photographic work My Grandmother’s House.
A major monograph with the publishing house Arnoldsche and the awarded German Book designer Alexandra Rusitschka accompanies the exhibition.
Helen Britton, an exceptional Australian artist of international reputation, is the tenth artist in this exhibition series Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft.
Living Treasures is a series of solo exhibitions honouring eminent Australian craftspeople, celebrating their mastery of skill, their achievements and the unique place they occupy in the national design culture.
Visit Helen Britton | The Story So Far on the Australian Design Centre website
Helen Britton in her studio. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
About the Artist
Helen Britton is a multidisciplinary Australian artist based in Munich, Germany. Her practice includes jewellery, sculpture, drawings, stencils and installations, and is informed by popular culture, threatened traditions, environmental destruction and human anxiety.
Helen completed a Master of Fine Arts by research at Curtin University, Western Australia in 1999, which included guest studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, and San Diego State University, California. In 1999 she returned to Munich to complete postgraduate study at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 2002 she established her Studio in Munich with David Bielander and Yutaca Minegishi. In March of 2011 Helen Drutt-English launched a new catalogue of Helen Britton’s work in Munich. In 2013 at the invitation of The Neue Sammlung, Munich, an overview of 20 years of Helen’s work was shown as a solo exhibition in the Neues Museum, Nürnberg, Germany. In 2017 Helen was invited to create the exhibition “Interstices” at The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA, Western Australia – a complete overview of her practice in conjunction with the Festival of Perth, including her large scale drawing works, Ghost Train installation and a selection of small sculptures and objects. In 2019 Helen Britton was made adjunct Professor of RMIT University in Melbourne. In 2020 Helen was invited by the Bavarian Chamber of Crafts to curate Schmuck for the International handwerksmesse in Munich. In 2021 Elena Alvarez-Lutz released her documentary film Hunter from Elsewhere, A Journey with Helen Britton at Dok.Fest Munich. A comprehensive exhibition catalogue of The Dark Garden was published by Prearo Editore and Galleria Antonella Villanova, released in 2022. In 2023 Helen was made the ‘icon’ of New York Jewelry Week.
Hunter From Elsewhere Film Preview
Special screenings of this feature documentary made about Helen and her practice will also take place across Australia alongside the exhibition.
Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft
Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft is an initiative of Australian Design Centre. The series aims to celebrate the achievements of Australia’s most iconic crafts practitioners, through a touring exhibition and a major monograph publication.
Living Treasures celebrates the work and practice of exceptional individuals who have demonstrated more than three decades of excellence in their chosen discipline.
The series was conceived in 2004 when ADC reached out to the sector nationally to put together three authoritative panels that would come together to review nominations and select the next Living Treasure. ADC is joined by a panel of sector experts from across Australia to select artists for the Living Treasures series. In recent years that panel has included Lisa Cahill (CEO and Artistic Director ADC), Brian Parkes (CEO JamFactory), and Dr Kevin Murray (Garland Magazine).
The Living Treasures exhibitions focuses on current work – they are not historic surveys. This concept aims to ensure that the work and ideas presented are current reflections of the practitioner’s process and output. Each exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful monograph, which not only celebrates the work but also delves into each artist’s background in more detail, contextualising their status as a leading practitioner of their craft.
Helen Britton: Living Treasure Master of Australian Craft | Object Podcast
Object: Stories of Australian Design and Craft is a podcast exploring design and contemporary craft in Australia, hosted by Australian Design Centre’s CEO and Artistic Director Lisa Cahill.
Education and Engagement
This exhibition resource that accompanies the exhibition is designed for students of all ages and abilities. In it, selected exhibition themes have been expanded for their relatability. The activities have been designed for adaptation to suit a range of different educational environments and research and creative studies from primary to tertiary and community learning.
Itinerary
Watt Space Gallery | University of Newcastle, NSW
6 February – 24 April 2026
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, VIC
20 June – 23 August 2026
South East Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA), NSW
5 September – 21 November 2026
Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW
5 December 2026 – 31 January 2027
Tamworth Regional Gallery, NSW
6 February – 4 April 2027
JamFactory, SA
15 April – 27 June 2027
Busselton Cultural Precinct, WA
1 October – 14 November 2027
Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW
5 December 2027 – 28 February 2028
An Australian Design Centre, ADC On Tour National Touring Exhibition, supported by Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program. Helen Britton was supported to produce her work for this exhibition with funding through Creative Australia.
