Michelle Heldon

Inspired by nature my works reflect an essence of memory and place. When we are in nature we tend to slow down, we experience the place around us, through not just what we see but also what we feel. From studies at various locations I construct small assemblages and these lead onto larger scale works.

The found object is of particular interest to me due to its humble form and embedded history. My works are created by responding to the way different materials feel and react to each other. I create small constructions and build up surfaces focusing on form, colour, texture, shape and the relationship between these parts. I use handmade paper and pigments and found wood and objects to make ‘artworks’ that feel like they have just been discovered rather than created by a human hand.

My work is aimed at encouraging the viewer to pause and look deeper. To take on a moment: a space- one of slowness, calm and sensitivity. To notice something they may not have seen at first glance. Or to wonder and something they are unable to see or understand.

We miss so much in the busy world around us and yet there is beauty in the simplest things if we have time to notice them. To feel art rather than just see it is an inspiring thing.

Michelle Heldon, Artist Statement February 2009

Beth Norling

'Don't touch'. My work is about secrets, the things I can't or wont otherwise express. I conceal objects and narratives of unspeakable origin beneath a lacework of plasticene or under a canopy of drapery or curls. These works are both drawing and sculpture, playing on the edge between repugnant and the exquisite, the worthless and the covetable. These works describe the uneasy tension between attraction and restraint and reveal, through a very personal symbolism, the quietly beautiful and erotic nature of obsession.
Beth Norling, artist statement, 2009

Virginia Mawer

Hello, my lover, Goodbye

The Greek philosopher Heraclitis observed that through water, “everything exists in a state of flux. Situated between shapelessness and form; or potential and reality, it is perhaps the perfect lens through which to consider ideas about who or what we are, and where our place is within the world.” (David Suzuki, Liquid Sea , MCA, p13)



Water became a symbol, a material, a methodology and a stage for which to explore my ideas. Cultural and historically, water not only connects us to our place in this world, but draws reference to death, transformation the afterlife. Drawing on a range of beliefs, it can be seen that “water symbolizes the whole of potentiality: it is the fons et origo, the source of all possible existence. Water symbolizes the primal substance from which all forms come and to which they will all return.” (David Jasper, "Screening Angels," The Art of Bill Viola, p.184)

This work, comprised of film, photography and sculpture looks at the choreographed movements of an altered bed sheet. Pinquilt is a broderie anglaise bedcover embellished with thousands of pearl white sewing pins that follow the stitched pattern on the fabric. The top surface shows us its shiny ‘bubbles’ but the underside reveals something more sinister. The multitude of sharp ended pins wave and jiggle coyly like a centipede’s legs, but their shiny silver tips would scratch and pierce the surface of the skin if given the chance. In no way a cosy cover for sleeping, it presents a discomforting punishment that prevents relaxation and denies rest. As a prop, it has been let loose from the confines of its prior existence.

Under the surface of the water, the form glides through space with the slow motion waving frill of a manta ray or recoiled for attack like an angry cuttlefish. The often slow movements, suggest suspension in a moment of weightlessness. This floating suspension was performed by the sheet-as-shroud, remembering the death associated with oceanic imagery.

Virginia Mawer, artist statement February 2009



Although a Sydney girl at heart, Virginia Mawer loves to be out of the country and on the move. In order to see the world and improve her failing Italian, she completed a year at L’Accademia delle Belle Arti in Italy as part of her double degree. Staying on after the academic year had finished, she traipsed about Europe in search of the good life and inner peace. Failing to find either, she returned home to concentrate on her first love, art.

After finishing off the degrees and adding on a gruelling honours year, Virginia is a bit tired. She is taking a catnap in preparation for her masters but continues to exhibit locally and internationally in the meantime.

lure, allure, illusion - upcoming exhibition

26th March - 7th April 2009

Gaffa Gallery ~ 1/7 Randle Street, Surry Hills, Sydney ~

Artists: Kath Fries, Beth Norling, Linden Braye, Michelle Heldon, Virginia Mawer and Megan Sprague

lure, allure, illusion explores layers of sensory engagement within artistic processes and materiality. Each artist reveals and manipulates elements of attraction and repulsion, which are specific to their personal selection of unusual and non-traditional materials. The finial artworks, shown together for the first time in this exhibition, entice you to respond physically and emotionally to the tactility of the artworks. In some cases you are specifically invited to touch the work, but in others you are instructed to control your impulses. Perhaps the most challenging situation develops when no clear directions are given, then you must decide for yourself what level of tactile engagement you are prepared to hazard. The works exhibited in lure, allure, illusion compel a personal exploration of the relationships between seduction and destruction, which extends beyond the gallery into broader to issues of consumption, consumerism, denial and desire.