Helen Clara Hemsley
Jeweller
/
MunichSchmuckFair2025
MunichSchmuckFair2026
Published: 16.06.2026
- Mail:
- helen
helenclarahemsley.dk
- Phone:
- +45 2235 8520
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Bio
Helen Clara Hemsley is an artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, born in Durban, South Africa. With a BA on Fine Art Sculpture - Glasgow School of Art, and studies in jewellery, has a solid career on the field. Helen is inspired by the every day and the familiar and her work is about passion, love and curiosity.Statement
I am inspired by the every day and the familiar. My jewellery celebrates my life and observations, my love of words and sayings, and my incurable need to process and understand the world around me. My work is often funny, a bit silly and light, but with a twist of critical observation. I tell stories that are essentially mine, but with a hope that they can also touch others, bring a smile to their faces and get them thinking. My work is about passion, love and curiosity and it mirrors my desire for answers to endless questions.Complementing Reality by Mette Saabye and Helen Clara Hemsley since 2022.
Helen Clara Hemsley and Mette Saabye use their personal experiences, immediate surroundings and international events in their childhood/youth during the 70s and 80s to make jewellery together, bearing witness to their lives in two countries so far away from each other, and the overlaps and connections between them. But also the holes that they try to fill together, carefully, with respect and kindness – thereby complementing reality.
By bringing together subjective and objective perspectives on themes such as Homeland, Mothers and Fathers, the artists have developed a series of works in which each topic is reflected through a response by both artists, creating a mirror of different experiences, perceptions and memories.
As part of their working process, Helen and Mette visited places that are significant to both of them, in Denmark and South Africa, and collected site-specific materials and impressions. They filmed, talked to people and photographed locations that forever hold memories and lived experiences. All of these elements create a living catalogue of things, feelings and materials, which are then used to inform their works.
This all results in works exploring notions of belonging, home, family and connection, celebrating an unconventional sisterhood.
The project is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Danmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation and Copenhagen Goldsmiths’ Guild.
Complementing reality has been shown at Wolfgang Gebhard: Visuelle Kommunikation in Munich and PLATINA in Stockholm. Future exhibitions in Copenhagen, December 2026 and Tinsel Gallery, Johannesburg, February 2027.
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- Mail:
- helenhelenclarahemsley.dk
- Phone:
- +45 2235 8520
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