Helen Philipp

Helen’s works draw on the vibrant colours and circular forms of the natural world, using enlarged photographs of plankton, fungus and lichen as a reference for creating sculptural forms.

View Helen's work

In the past, Helen has incorporated plastics, collected from the St Kilda foreshore, into her woven forms to raise awareness of the amount of plastic refuse which is thrown away and ends up in the ocean, and its ecological destructiveness.

Her current works, about regeneration, responds to the destruction, loss and chaos that characterized the past few years; pandemic, fire and flood. Underpinning all this is Helen’s exploration of the relationship between form, materiality, and colour in the discipline of weaving.

Helen lives and works in St Kilda, Melbourne where she is enjoying a 3 year residency at The City of Port Phillip’s Shakespeare Grove Artist Studios.

Helen has recently had solo shows at Carlisle Street Art Space (May 12-June 9, 2021), West End Art Space (September 7-24, 2022) as well as exhibiting in groups shows, including, The Australian Tapestry Workshop (“Leftover Love” 17 Dec-March 11, 2022), Divisions Gallery ("Re-Order”, August 19-Sept 2022) and Townsville Regional Pinnacles Gallery (“Leftover Love: New Directions”, April 29-June 19 2023).

In 2021 and 2022 Helen was a prize winner at the Victorian Contemporary Sculpture Association Bonanza Prize and a finalist at the Yering Station Sculpture Prize in 2022 and 2023. Helen ‘s work was chosen as a finalist in The Deakin Small Sculpture Prize 2022 and The Wyndham Art Prize 2022.