Gummed-up teeth, twigs and cuttlefish for cutting and combing...

Gummed-up teeth, twigs and cuttlefish for cutting and combing hair

Drawing has played a central role in Christine Hellyar’s practice since the late-1960s, as an artform in its own right but also as a research method and avenue for experimentation and planning.

This drawing was first exhibited alongside Hellyar’s Cloak Cupboard, Dagger Cupboard and Meat Cupboard (all 1981), which were acquired by the Govett-Brewster in 1982. These cupboards contain fictionalised artifacts formed from clay, fibres, wood, and plant material. Arranged in neat rows, the cupboards and their contents lodge a gentle critique of museological systems of collection, taxonomy and display—a system which wrests material culture from its worldly context, and attempts to stabilise it for contemplation.

Hellyar writes that these works were developed from her interest in the “use of the hand as a sensing device.” We can read this in reference to drawing as a means to record and attune to the world, or in reference to the sculpting of matter from one’s surrounding environment into instruments designed for violence, nurture, pleasure and survival.
— Simon Gennard, adapted from wall label for Set Dressing, 2024