Helen Carnac
Helen Carnac is a maker, curator and academic who lives and works in London. Drawing, mark-making, the explicit connections between material, process and maker and an emphasis on deliberation and reflection are all central to her practice as a maker and thinker.
Carnac was awarded a Cultural leadership fellowship in the Crafts in 2009 in order to develop ideas about how the Crafts are communicated. She has curated the National touring exhibition ‘Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution’ in 2009 which has recently opened at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. In 2006 she was co-chair for the Association for Contemporary Jewellery’s conference Carry the Can® and she is actively involved in developing dialogue within the Crafts having developed numerous talks and events for makers over the past five years.
Her work is held in both National and International collections, including Racine Art Museum. She has taught extensively in the UK and USA including Virginia Commonwealth University and this May she will be running a studio Course at Penland Mountain School, North Carolina.
The Work.
These enamel vessels have been made during an intense period of making activity, in response to each other. Beginnings and endings overlapping – each a reflection of the other. The drawn base forms part of the process that initiates and binds the thinking and making of the marks.
I have always considered drawing to be a most significant part of my work and intrinsic to my practice as a metalworker and enameller. Over the last ten years my work has developed markedly with over-riding concerns of line, mass and landscape continually recurring. I aim to develop new ways of working where the drawn image is the focal point in a union of two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. This ongoing series of work is an expression of my fascination with mark-making in both two and three dimensions. I aim to record not only my thought process but also the connection of hand, eye and mind in a non-verbal discourse, whilst highlighting the cyclical nature of my making process and the marks and rhythms of my drawing process, which resonate and confer with my object-making processes. Repetition of mark is key and enables me to focus. I work mostly with vitreous enamels on steel. My primary aim is to draw with the material leaning towards techniques such as sgraffito. The combination of materials and my drawing methods have led to an ongoing body of works that I find rewarding and demanding. Firing for the most part only once, areas of the panels are ground and abraded to a matt finish in places, allowing the steel substrate to oxidise naturally, creating new relationships with the enamel; a crossing point between control and chance.
Born 1968, Redruth, Cornwall
Education
1990-1994 BA (Hons) Silversmithing, Jewellery and Allied Craft, London Guildhall University, Sir John Cass
1993 Fachhochschule fur Gestaltung, Schwabisch Gmund, Germany
Awards
2009 Cultural Leadership Development Award: Cultural Leadership programme.
2008 Innovation in enamelling, Playing with Fire Exhibition, UK
2008 Third prize Juried exhibition, Metal Inclinations, USA
1996 Winner Carroll Foundation Award, Chelsea Crafts Fair
1996 Selected Index, Crafts Council
1996 Membership, Contemporary Applied Arts
1995 Runner-up Carroll Foundation Award
1995 Setting Up Grant, Crafts Council
Selected Exhibitions
2010 SOFA NY, with CAA
Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London with CAA
Intelligent Trouble, CAA London with David Gates, David Clarke and Lin Cheung
2009 In Transit…84GHz, Munich
Collect, Saatchi gallery, London with Contemporary Applied Arts
Cluster, Installation at Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco
Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
2008 In response to…84GHz, Munich
Elizabeth Turrell and Helen Carnac, University of East Carolina
Playing With Fire, Juried Exhibition, Devon Guild of Craftsmen and touring
Collect, V&A, with Contemporary Applied Arts
2007 Process Works, 5 Jewellers: University of Hertfordshire Galleries and touring, catalogue
Medals: curated by Elizabeth Turrell: Museum fur Arbeit, Hamburg and touring, catalogue
Anti War Medals, Gallery I/O, Thomas Mann, New Orleans.
Collect at the V&A
2006 Collect at the V&A
2004 Anti War Medals exhibition, Curated by Velvet Da Vinci, Touring: Electrum, London Norway and USA
2003 Celebrating Education, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
David Gates and Helen Carnac, Flow, London
Commissions
2007 Co-curator with Craftspace of National touring exhibition ‘Slow’
2005 Collaborative commission with David Gates: Permanent installation of Furniture with enamel for Bilston Craft Gallery: Wolverhampton City Art Galleries
2005 Lead Artist Artquest, London: Forum project: lead debate on Contemporary Craft practice
Public Collections
Racine Art Museum’ s permanent collection, Wisconsin, USA
Public Commissions
2005 Collaborative commission with David Gates: Permanent installation of Furniture with enamel for Bilston Craft Gallery: Wolverhampton City Art Galleries
Lead artist
Artuest, London: Forum project: lead debate on Contemporary Craft practice
Publications
Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution, Editor, 2009
500 Enameled Objects, Lark Books, 2009
The Compendium of Contemporary Makers, Darling Publications, Germany, 2009
‘Enamel Experience’ UWE, 2007,
Process Works 5 Jewellers, Jan 2007, Site Projects,
Diaspora Cymreig, Makers of welsh origin working outside of Wales:
Publisher: Denbighshire County Council, Ruthin Craft Centre (28 Mar 2002)
Teaching
2010 Penland School of Arts, North Carolina, USA
2008 University of East Carolina, North Carolina, USA
2007 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA
University of East Carolina, North Carolina, USA
Millersville University, Pennsylvania, USA
2006- 2009 London Metropolitan University. Senior Lecturer
2002- 2006 London Metropolitan Universit: Research and Employability Manager
2001- 2002 Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication
Lead Tutor Foundation: 3D Design Pathway.
1999-2002 London Guildhall University. Visiting lecturer