Helen Tiernan
Helen S. Tiernan is of Irish /Indigenous heritage of the Kulin Nation. An honours graduate from the Australian National University’s (ANU) Canberra School of Art, she has distinguished herself as a painter of considerable eloquence, technical virtuosity, irreverence and humor, whose work stands at the forefront of Indigenous identity art historical discourses today. She has major works of exploration and navigation featured in the exhibition displays of the National Maritime Museum and is represented in the collection of Parliament House, Canberra.
Tiernan has built her reputation on richly research-based content, quoting from her own heritage, as well as European and Indigenous archival records. More recently she has been inspired by Lynne Kelly’s Memory Code; Alison Page’s Clever Country; Ray Norris’ Astronomical Symbolism in Australian Aboriginal rock art and the ground-breaking exhibition Songlines- tracking the seven sisters co- curated by Margo Neale, where the collaboration of the use of Indigenous memory codes embedded within landscape has been acknowledged.
In this context Tiernan’s recent paintings, playfully remind us that landscapes are neither innocent or pristine, but rather, cultured spaces; repositories of ancient knowledge and deep memory where, from an Indigenous Australian perspective, they are storied with Songlines and Tjukurrpa and inflected with the moralities arising from mythology that remind us of how values and identities formed.Another articulation in Tiernan’s cross-cultural narratives, is the interweaving of symbolic references to instruments and vehicles of navigation, the subject of paintings from her earlier exhibitions.
Tiernan has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally. Her works are held in private corporate collections in Australia, USA, United Kingdom, Europe and public collections including those at National Maritime Museum Sydney NSW; Parliament House Canberra, Legislation Assembly, ACT, the Australian National University (ANU) and the National Museum of Australia. Tiernan is the recipient of several awards and grants from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).