Drawings by Christine Hellyar

Christine Hellyar was born in New Plymouth in 1947. She completed a Diploma in Fine Arts (Hons) at the Elam School of Art in 1970. Exhibiting consistently in New Zealand and internationally since then, Hellyar’s work has been included in many major exhibitions and is also held in most New Zealand public collections.

Always inspired by the beaches and bush around her home town, Hellyar won a Department of Conservation residency in 2003. She spent six weeks living in a hut on Mount Taranaki drawing and creating sculptures. Her focus was on the differing vegetation in the various micro-climates on the mountain, particularly the high and low parts where she felt totally encased in bush. Hellyar saw her Alpine Mt Taranaki drawings as a walk – “walking, and the lovely things that happen along the sides as you walk, are an important part of being up the mountain”.

Also included in the show are selected works from other Hellyar series - Plant Collections (2003) emphasises that rather than picking plants, she collects them by drawing them. In Praise of Nikau (2016) was created in celebration of her favourite palm and Nikau Track. The Flood drawings were “a way of bringing the biblical to Piha - I know the tracks and streams out there and enjoy the extra water heavy storms bring. It’s also a way of bringing light that is not linear into the forest."

“Drawing is lovely but you can’t just draw - it has to go somewhere else - it has to be more meaningful. I like crayon and dye and use a lot of each – it’s partly playing with materials and with ideas that you think are uniquely yours”.

Hellyar’s drawings on display in this show are both unique and evocative.
Please note that these works will be on display until Monday 24 August, 2020.