Exhibitions
Auckland
JOHN TARLTON
CHRISTINE HELLYAR
Christine Hellyar's recent exhibition consisted of twelve latex and metal sculptures and a selection of research-like drawings of native bush.
In Hellyar's own assessment she is probably the only New Zealand sculptor working consistently in the medium of latex rubber, and it is obvious that through her continual manipulation of this material she has not only mastered the medium but has extended its artistic possibilities farther than any other artist working in New Zealand today.
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CHRISTINE HELLYAR My Devotion Poles 1977 Latex rubber and mixed media (New Vision Gallery) |
Hellyar is concerned with the environment. Her interest in the way in which things grow and are attached to each other becomes apparent through her final, rubber-skinned copies of natural objects. Whether placed independently or in association with metal additions or suspensions, ambiguities are always present through the re-definition of temporal natural objects such as leaves, cones, branch and tree sections into the permanence of cast latex sheets. Hellyar has stopped the natural process of decomposure and accidental shifts in composition by transferring their visual information into the artificial properties of latex. Her use of arbitrary colour dyes further intensifies the feelings of ambiguity; while the un-natural surface effects of the latex casts push the sculptures into areas which move from the elegant to the humorous, to the repellent.
Christine Hellyar is one of the finest and most important young object-orientated sculptors working in New Zealand. Her fertile imagination coupled with her technical expertise establish her as a major and vital force for the development of contemporary object-orientated sculpture.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 7 August/September/October 1977