EXPO ‘Devils and Their Friends’ – Sienna Patti, Lenox (USA) – 9 Juin-24 Juill. 2015
Devils and Their Friends by Helen Britton
09 Jun - 24 Jul 2015 at Sienna Patti – Lenox, USA
The newest collection of rings by Helen Britton, « Devils and Their Friends », are now in exhibition at Sienna Patti. The pieces have roots in her long time fascination with popular culture and its everyday remains and are exclusive to the gallery.
Helen Britton - Ring: Dough Devil, 2015 – Gold, diamonds
« Devils and Their Friends
If I think about when this work started, then of course I quickly land in the forests of Thüringen and the first of the Devil ring series in 2007. But then that work really stared with visits to that region in 2001. Recently I unearthed a stack of drawings from my late teen and early twenties: wild pigs, black dogs, old cars and headless horsemen. Clearly the things that attracted me to the Forest were not something new.
There was always a dark side, an interest in spooky things, and the obsession with Ghost trains is now common knowledge. But they were also comical, harmless and popular things, things that made their appearances not only at fairgrounds, but also in cartoons on TV or in the jewellery that rolled out of the trinket automat at the supermarket. Popular culture and the everyday remains the baseline in much of my work.
The characters in this series inhabit an imaginary world that has its roots in the Forest [1] work, Unheimlich[2] and these early drawings. Smooth Devil, Stone Devil, Wood Devil, Dough Devil, Fire Devil, Eel, Water Sprite, Millipede, Swine and Old Tree. These characters have broken through to the surface of this deep old river of preoccupation, crept out of their dank and mossy worlds and I have captured their likeness before they slip back under the surface and head on their merry way. » - Helen Britton, 2015.
Helen Britton Ring: Fire Devil, 2015 Red gold, diamonds, paint, etching
Helen Britton Ring: Stone, Wood and Smooth Devil, 2015 Silver, diamonds
