Whisper thin paper floating through the air, echoes the fragility of nature in the hauntingly sublime new prints from Helen Mueller in Forest Stories.
Every day Helen heads into Hobart’s Knocklofty Reserve where the forest speaks to her. Along the way, she pockets branches, seedpods and other debris to take back to her studio for questioning. “This leads to a translation of what I heard on my forest walks. The plant debris suggests shapes and rhythms which I draw, then carve from small blocks of pine ply.”
Forest motives are printed onto translucent Japanese paper, crafted from the bark of the mulberry tree, then layered with “the top one being so thin it is almost suspended in air.” As a result, when we view her largest work Forest Story 10, an unframed eight-panelled print, just the smallest of breath causes it to flutter. “It is as if the forest is speaking back to us.”
Helen relocated from Sydney four years ago, and this is her first Tasmanian solo exhibition. Marvel at her beautiful prints where repetition of mark, shadowy forms, and a depth of field emerge from the layering: “In this way I hope to have created a language with which to translate some of the stories from the magnificent forest.”
Helen Mueller’s Forest Stories opens at Handmark Gallery on October 18 and runs until November 4. Click here to register for a preview. |