Overview
Christine Hellyar was born and raised in New Plymouth. Enrolled as a student at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland in the late 1960s, she began working with rubber latex. Hellyar’s interest in this process was based on the idea of making casts of ‘real’ materials and objects – something she has focussed on throughout her career.
By using real things and making copies of real things Hellyar asks us to consider the way we use objects as ‘evidence’ or markers of history, memory, and knowledge.
Her initial practice of making casts of aspects of the natural world developed into an interest in domestic objects such as clotheslines, tea-towel racks, and food. Country Clothesline (1972) was one of her first major works: twenty–two items of clothing dipped in latex are hung on a rope propped up with a wooden pole.
By bringing ‘ordinary’ objects associated with women’s domestic labour into an art gallery she challenged accepted ideas of art – what is ‘art’, and who decides? In this, Hellyar’s work can be seen as part of the feminist critique of systems of art and culture which has significantly altered contemporary art practice.
Though Hellyar claims to be little influenced by other sculptors, she feels an empathy with the work of other women artists and writers. Like many women artists working in three dimensions, Hellyar uses the idea of ‘containers’ to unite disparate elements. These include deep wooden boxes, perspex cylinders, food display cases, and china cabinets.
This device contributes to the meaning of her work, much of which focuses on the idea of containment. Hellyar invites us to consider the paradox of this idea – a container might provide security and nurture, but at the same time it is also a trap and a restraint.
In 1974 Hellyar lived in Cornwall, England and travelled around Europe visiting many museums and galleries. At this time – and during a subsequent period living in Scotland – Hellyar focused her interest on the way objects are collected and displayed as ‘artefacts’. This led to a new series of works in which she made ‘artefacts’ and arranged them in various cupboards and containers.
This series highlighted Hellyar’s dual interests in the display of artefacts and in various craft techniques. Works like Clutch, Brood and Echo and the Cloak, Dagger, and Meat Cupboards of 1981 combine disparate and unlikely objects in ‘museum-like’ arrangements.
Hellyar’s use of natural and found objects reflects her respect for the environment and her concern about the human abuse of it. This interest also extends into the world of culture and human activity. Hellyar’s work reminds us, for example, that museums have traditionally studied and presented indigenous societies as a series of archaeological artefacts, removed from any emotional or spiritual framework.
Christine Hellyar is one of New Zealand’s most thought-provoking and innovative sculptors. In 1982 she exhibited at the Fourth Bienniale of Sydney, one of the first two women ever selected to represent New Zealand at the Biennale of Sydney.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database.