Helen Pynor

helen pynor

RECENT NEWS

AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS - INTER-ARTS PROJECT GRANT
Helen in collaboration with artist Peta Clancy and sound artist Gail Priest have been
awarded an Australia Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Project Grant, for their project
The Body is a Big Place. The project will explore questions arising from the experience
of organ transplantation. Following a residency at SymbioticA later this year the project
will culminate in a residency and exhibition at Performance Space (Sydney) in 2011,
curated by Bec Dean.

Link to Australia Council Inter-Arts Grant Assessment Report, March 2010

AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS - LONDON STUDIO
Helen has recently been awarded the Australia Council London Studio, located in the
heart of London’s contemporary art district in Bethnal Green. Helen will undertake the
residency in early 2011, conducting research in London’s numerous museums of
medicine/ surgery and at the Wellcome Collection, following on from her PhD research.

Link to Australia Council International Residencies Grant Assessment Report, November 2009

RESIDENCY, SYMBIOTICA, PERTH
Helen has been awarded a 3-month residency at SymbioticA, Centre of Excellence in
Biological Arts, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia.
SymbioticA is a unique artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and
hands-on engagement of the life sciences. The laboratory is the first and only research
laboratory of its kind in the world, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices
in a biological sciences department. Helen will undertake the residency in collaboration with
Melbourne-based artist Peta Clancy during 2010-2011, where they will learn microsurgery
techniques for their collaborative project The Body is a Big Place, a project exploring some
of the implications of organ transplantation.

www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au

RESIDENCY, A.R.T. TOKYO
As part of the RBS Emerging Artist Award Helen received in October 2009, she will undertake
a residency during 2010 at A.R.T. TOKYO. The institution was established by Founder and
Director Joni Waka 20 years ago to foster and support avant-garde culture in Asia. Helen will
explore conceptual and material links between her work and that of a number of Japanese
contemporary artists.

Link to press on A.R.T TOKYO

WINNER OF THE 2009 RBS EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
In October 2009 Helen was announced winner of the nationwide 2009 RBS Emerging
Artist Award, for her photographic triptych Milk (tea tree, bird’s nest fern, wattle).
The award comes with a $15 000 cash prize, an around-the-world airline ticket,
and a residency at A.R.T. TOKYO to be taken up in 2010. Helen’s triptych has been
acquired for the corporate collection of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Australia.

Link to national press on the 2009 RBS Emerging Artist Award win

COMPLETION OF PHD THESIS, 2010
Helen completed her PhD thesis in 2010 at Sydney College of the Arts, The University
of Sydney. Her thesis, entitled Transgressive Biology and Material Feminism:
Bioconversations in Art, Evolution and Emergence uses new and emergent
understandings in evolutionary and developmental biology, in dialogue with new
materialist understandings of the biological in feminist theory. Helen uses this material to
challenge the traditional division of culture-biology, and as a framework from which to
understand the processes of making and encountering works of art.

WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD, WILLOUGHBY SCULPTURE PRIZE
In September 2009 Helen was awarded the People’s Choice Award for her work Exhale at
Willoughby Sculpture Prize, held at The Incinerator, Willoughby. The work also received a
Highly Commended from the judges.

CURRENT AND FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photographic Award
Finalist Exhibition

Judge: Judy Annear, Senior Curator Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales

9 April – 23 May 2010
Opening Friday 9 April 2010

Gold Coast City Art Gallery

135 Bundall Road
Surfers Paradise
Queensland
Australia

Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photographic Award

5 BY 5
Group Exhibition

Works by Laith McGregor, Dennis Nona, Helen Pynor, Tony Lloyd and Anthony White.

Presented by COMODAA
30 page catalogue with essays by Ashley Crawford

24 May – 6 June 2010
Private view 27 May 2010

Menier Gallery