AWARD at the British Ceramics Biennial 2021
Helen is one of ten ceramic artists selected to make new work for AWARD. Her porcelain cityscape is made up of hundreds of tiny pots and hand built pieces. It is nine months of making, hand painting, glazing and finally filming. It observes and reflects on the changes that we have all lived through over the past year and a half.
AWARD at The Goods Yard, Stoke on Trent, from 11th September to 17th October 2021, open Wednesday to Sunday 10am - 5pm
Ghost Town Britain
In the thick of lockdown, a boarded up pub displays the sign “Shut Happens”. The pithy irreverent humour in such grave circumstances - could anything be more British? It was to become the starting point for Helen’s largest clay installation to date.
Helen uses illustration as her tool and clay as her canvas to record observations of the world around us. She particularly loves capturing the nuances of the British in her work. This piece reflects on the incomparable changes the pandemic brought to us all and celebrates the ways in which we adapted to a very different way of life.
This work is brought to life with a stop motion animation – a format aptly introduced to Helen by her ‘home schooling‘ children. Helen enjoys playing out the new scenes within her clay landscapes. The new ways we communicate: the signs in our windows, the nods as contact is avoided walking down the street. As a reflection on a world isolating and zooming, it feels fitting that this piece too should connect to us via computer screen.