Artist Statement:
Our Australian wetlands face severe threats: drainage and underground coal mining. Without growing awareness of thje plight of our Australian Earth, our waterlands would dry up into barren wastelands, our drinking water would be posioned, our rich bushlands and farmlands reduced to only memories.
My drawings aim to raise awareness of this peril.
These drawings
are my personal tribute to our beautiful,diverse, yet imperilled
wetlands. They are my mememories of lush simmering childhood
wetlands. Revived within deep time to reveal marshes that hide
their secrets in
mists and giant trees are frozen dancers in the wind. They seek
the “sacred spaces” in the bush, in order to
renew the waters and life of the old ones who live eternally within the
land. Using my childhood memories of my
upbringing, playing in a now lost swamp. Remembering my father, a
stockman from the Snowy Mountains, who taught me about the bush, and
the birds and animals who belong there. The cries and dark forms of
swans haunted my childhood , elusive as the element of water. So I
now portray shimmering black swans gliding through moonlight, as a
water symbol, the lifeblood of the land. Black swans correspond to
dark mystery, enchanting sacred spaces, renewing wetlands and lakes.
These drawings invite the veiwer on a journey through levels of reality, from the liminal to the subliminal. As it travels it sings the tracks, from the macrocosm of a world empire and its colonial strategies, to the microcosm of a lost East Gippsland environment and its people, to the concealments of a family living on this borderland, to faint ghosts of childhood whispers and fragments of dreams.
Within the artworks of “Borderlands”, time becomes an in-between liminal place of mystery and magic the liminal magic depths of lost ancestors and forgotten wetlands. Where time is fluid, and where the past and the future glides along whirlpools of many Secret pools.
This sense of eternal time, where fragments of past reflect the in-betweenness of cultural intermingling, renewing a dreaming that shines and shimmers, restoring forgotten places within our hearts, seeking reconciliation of indigenous and mainstream cultures. Inviting a journey through levels of time and reality, from the liminal to the subliminal.
A journey through the layers of time and history undertaken to places where many of our cultural certainties are questioned.
The pens used are modern and antique including old Mabie & Todd ‘Swan’ and Vintage Japanese pens. The multi-coloured inks are of archival quality American ‘Noodlers’ and Japanese ‘Sailor.’ The watercolours are Marie’s transparent Chinese watercolours. And much transparent Japanese tissue paper was used in the collaging process.
The paper is Australian highest quality ‘Blue Lake’ watercolour paper handmade in Mt Gambier by Maurice Wilson.
Many of the drawing on this website are available for sale. I also will accept commissions. Please e-mail me for further details.
Email: helen.duley -at -gmail.com
Web-site: http://www.swamplands.net.au/
1976: Moongoong Darwung Aboriginal Council, Kununurra, Resident Artistic Coordinator.
1978-9: NZ: Resident Artist, Christchurch Arts Centre.
1980: Australia: A year of touring all Australian states & painting.
1981: Brisbane, Queensland: Painting & studied Anthropology at University of Qld.
1985: Perth, Western Australia: Painting.
1994-6: London: Summer School, The Slade ; Workshop on Cecil Collins’ Life Drawing Methods.
1999: Painting and exhibiting in UK (see below).
2003: Australia: New England district of NSW: Painting.
2004-9: Lower Beechmont, Gold Coast Hinterland, Qld: ‘Mythic Maps of the Soul of Australian Landscape”
1975: Bachelor of Arts, La Trobe University, Melbourne.
1997: Diploma, Teaching Adults (City & Guilds Part 1), Morley College, London.
1999: Diploma, Teaching Adults with Special Needs, CITE, The City Literature Institute, London.
2009 Master of Visual Arts (External), Monash University, Vic.
PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC
1997: Assoc. Member, London Society of Fine Graphic Artists, by portfolio exam.
1998: Designed courses, Morley Summer School, London.
Relief Tutor, Morley College, London (Life Drawing).
1999-02: Teaching experimental drawing, Morley College, London.
Art therapy tutor, CITE, The City Literature Institute, London.
2002- : Listed in ‘Who’s Who in British Art’.
2006- : Listed in ‘Who’s Who in International Art’.
2003: Tutor in drawing, Winter Course, University of South Queensland.
2004: Designed leaflets and banners for the Warwick Peace Festival 2005.
2008: Lecture: Helen Duley & Rodney Forbes, “Borderlands: Shrinking culture and wetland country.” Symposium on "Regions in a time of globalisation and climate change." Monash Univ Gippsland, 12 Dec.
2009: Delivered paper “Borderlands”, “Time, Transcendence, Performance” conference, ECPS, Monash Univ, Oct 3.
2009: Chairperson, “Temporality of Drawing” at “Time, Transcendence, Performance” conference, ECPS, Monash Univ, Oct 3.
NZ, 1977-79: 2 solo exhibitions, Christchurch Arts Centre; Group exhibition, Royal Overseas League.
UK, 1986-02: Solo displays: Battersea Contemporary Arts Fair (‘95, 96).
Annual Exhibitions: Society of Fine Graphic Artists, London (‘95, 97, 98, 01).
Group Exhibitions: The Cafe Gallery, London (‘97, 98); London Soc of Artists (‘88, 89); Fisherton Mill Gallery, Salisbury (‘98); Ark T Gallery, Oxford (‘99); The Morley Gallery, London (2000); ‘United Artists’, Westminster Gallery, London (2001).
2011: Artfelt Prize, Northern Rivers Art Gallery, Ballina NSW.
2012: Warwick Art Festival, Warwick Gallery, Warwick, Qld.
Aust, 2004- Bruce Watling Galleries, Southport, Gold Coast.
1995: Japanese article on my work published in British Airways ‘Inflight’ journal.
1998: Swan-Stabilo European competition, “Draw a winter scene”.
1999: Winsor & Newton European competition, based on the film “What Dreams May Come.”
2001: Wildlife competition, ‘PAWS 2001’, displayed at the Artists and Illustrators Fair (London).
2002: Artist & Illustrator’s Magazine “Paint a Garden”, A&I Fair (London).
Wildlife competition, ‘PAWS 2002’, A&I Fair (London).
2003: Article, Australian magazine 'Artists Palette' (vol 28, 2003, pp.8-14).
1995: New Academy Gallery, London.
2004-9:Works sold, holding and displayed at Bruce Watling Galleries, Southport, Gold Coast.
Private collections in Australia, USA, Brazil, UK, New Zealand, Japan, Poland.