Helen Bellino
BIO:
Helen Bellino (nee Harman) worked as a teacher and a writer before discovering mosaics 18 years ago. Since then, she has passed on her love of the artform to many hundreds of students and has created a vibrant mosaic community, Artopia, based in Melbourne. Her specialist teaching areas include incorporating crystals into mosaic art and sculpture methods suitable for mosaics. Her own art practice is diverse, as she loves to experiment with materials, often pushing the boundaries of traditional mosaics. Forever the storyteller, her exhibition pieces tell their own tales, bringing issues that are close to her heart into the public consciousness. She seeks to make her art accessible to all, especially in her sculpture garden, which will eventually become an interactive meditative environment to bring about positive change.
PRESENTATION: ‘How discovering mosaics led to a revolution’.
From one humble house number, a large and vibrant artistic community, Artopia, evolved. And that is why I cannot separate myself as an artist from myself as a teacher, because so many of the artworks I make are to inspire others to create confidently and evolve into happier and better versions of themselves. I make art to show people how to use the materials around them; challenging them to think twice about sending things unnecessarily to landfill. Some of my mosaic works also tell stories, in an attempt to urge others to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. My current works incorporate beach plastic, and so I will be recording some of the presentations on the beach, inspiring others to think about how small changes in behavior could lead to a revolution.