Helen Shirk

Helen Shirk

Helen Shirk’s work focusses on personal, joyous and painful aspects of life in metaphoric parallel with the processes present in the natural world. “Observation of the inevitable change in the natural world makes me feel calmer about what is happening to me.” Helen states that she uses the growth patterns found in nature to represent the personal challenges that she faces in life. She then combines these images of nature with the work that she produces to create jewellery pieces that are metaphors to the aspects of her life. Some of the metaphors of life that she portrays in her work are that of new growth, strength, fragility, beauty and death.

Helen Shirk, Sustaining Spirit VI, 1993, brass, copper, patina,