This Australian Jewellery Master Artist is Huge Overseas But Unknown at Home.

Helen Britton portrait.
Photo: Corinna Teresa Brix.

Freaked Out Crying Weeder, 2024
Photo: Eisel Dirk.

Australian Design Centre is presenting Helen Britton: The Story So Far, running from 28 August to 1 October 2025. As the tenth artist selected for the prestigious Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft exhibition series, Helen represents a significant moment in Australian contemporary craft.

Helen is a remarkable Australian artist who has gained international recognition while remaining somewhat under-celebrated at home. Based in Munich, Germany, for over two decades, she’s built a formidable reputation in contemporary jewellery, with pieces commanding up to $30,000 commercially and works held in major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Australia, and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Her practice extends well beyond jewellery into sculpture, drawings, stencils and installations, all informed by popular culture, environmental concerns, and human anxiety. But it’s her ability to transform personal history into powerful artistic statements that makes her work particularly compelling.

The Story So Far draws directly from Helen’s photographic documentation of her great-aunt Kath Carr’s house on the Clarence River in NSW’s Northern Rivers. Kath taught young Helen essential creative skills—porcelain painting, jewellery making, and collage work using pressed flowers and metal filings from the shed lathe. When Kath died, her house was locked and left completely intact, creating a time capsule of creative frugality and country resourcefulness.

Helen’s detailed photographic investigation of this space became a meditation on memory, connection, and the complex relationship between colonial history and creative practice. The exhibition features new jewellery, paintings, installations, and drawings alongside these photographs, creating what Australian Design Centre’s Artistic Director Lisa Cahill describes as an exploration of “the rich and complex world of country women, of a time of creative frugality that formed Helen’s early experience of Australia.”

The exhibition acknowledges difficult truths about Australia’s colonial past while celebrating the ingenuity and creativity that emerged from resourcefulness and making-do. It’s particularly meaningful that this work will tour extensively across regional Australia, visiting venues including Tamworth Regional Gallery, Ipswich Art Gallery, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, and Grafton Regional Gallery, among others.

Accompanying the exhibition is a major monograph published by German art house Arnoldsche, designed by award-winning book designer Alexandra Rutischka. Special screenings of the 2021 documentary Hunter from Elsewhere, A Journey with Helen Britton will also accompany the tour.

The exhibition opens on Wednesday, 27 August, with Helen travelling from Munich for the occasion. Given the Australian Design Centre’s recent funding challenges, this celebration of Australian craft excellence feels particularly significant—a reminder of what we stand to lose when cultural institutions struggle for support.

Helen Britton: The Story So Far offers a unique opportunity to engage with work that bridges personal memory and broader cultural reflection. It demonstrates how contemporary craft can address complex histories while maintaining beauty and technical excellence.

Translucent Treasures by Seulgi Kwon.

Inspired by nature and the infinite possibilities of creation, Korean artist Seulgi Kwon constructs delicate jewellery sculptures reminiscent of microscopic organisms.

Helen Britton in her studio in Munich, Germany.

[Images courtesy of Australian Design Centre.]