Helen Britton Lecture: The Things I See

… Love, wealth and sentimentality, humor, wisdom, violence and hope – seen in all their banality and yet likewise in all their depth. Sometimes it is something exotic, precious or rare, sometimes an amulet and talisman – these are the paradoxical emotional worlds and everyday things that Munich-based Australian Helen Britton (born 1966) explores and which she traces in her jewelry objects. She combines semi-finished products from the fashion jewelry industry, found objects from flea markets or strolls along the beach back home in Australia with components and structures she makes herself from metal, with gems, glass elements from Lauscha, with lacquer and plastic. And the result is something completely new, influenced not least by its industrial processing and origins. These objects are freed from the memories they nevertheless always possess, and are ready to be placed in new contexts. Dipped in the most refined of color symphonies, the jewelry objects Britton makes are thus very personal. Indeed, she comments: “I am building in a way a private world that accepts no compromises.” 

The exhibition includes a complete new body of work for the show, alongside a presentation of the industrial series in a custom built showcase. In the second room there is a selection out of her archive dating back to 1991, along with sketchbooks, photos and films.