Dorothy Helyer: Vola L’uccellino!

Vola l'uccellino! (Fly little bird!) builds on my previous exhibition at COCA , Now Points (October 2009) which was my response to the everyday where the pulse of life ebbs and flows alongside the creative spirit. Each painting was for me a 'now' point and a record of a particular point in time.

As a long time student of the Italian language, I was fortunate in 2009 to spend over a month in Italy, mostly Florence (Firenze) and Venice (Venezia) where I participated in an experimental painting workshop led by Los Angeles based NZ artist, Philippa Blair that was part of a larger, international summer school.

In Florence I enjoyed the independence of being a student and living by myself within the historical area of this fascinating city. Months later I continue to be haunted by the images and experiences from my time spent there.

Everywhere one goes in Florence and Venice, in fact in all parts of Italy, history is ingrained in the everyday experience of these cities where even the walls are a palimpsest of what has gone before and a ground on which the politicised and disaffected youth of today are able to express themselves. Everywhere there are great art works and the influences of the masters such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael and the contributions of patrons like the Medici family. I found these works of art breathtaking - almost overwhelming. However for me, my main interest was in the small almost insignificant details I perceived around me from day to day life there and it is some of these images, drawn from both high and low sources that inhabit this current body of work.

Though this exhibition is more figurative than some earlier work, I find I always return to some of my usual concerns that are always autobiographical to some degree. Again and again I find myself involved with palimpsests of history, evidence of age, mortality and decay, alongside references to the archaeological, maps and sites of previous occupation.

Dorothy Helyer

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