Hopes & Fears by Helen Britton

Hopes and Fears
Large and well feed, Catherine squats in the frame, contemplating her necklace on the other wall. So many meals, so many delicate creatures with immortal colours on their scaly wings. Angry at the loss of their sisters the Butterflies turn to take their revenge and small spiders hang and wait. The first part of the narrative evolved from these paintings.

In the Sculptures, clever hands have formed delicate flowers and butterfly wings in southern Italy, ephemera for eternity carried back to Germany by travellers to gather dust on shelves and end on eBay. Porcelain,  fragile and permanently trapped in concrete, an old chemical concoction the Romans invented has built roads across Europe for tanks to drive on. 

Making ephemera permanent is an ongoing theme in my work. Across the table insects proliferate, stones a century old gleaned from the German outback where they lay wondering their fate now to be carried out into the world to create these imaginings. 
We hope for the best in these uncertain times, and because we care our hopes generate anger and fear to protect the things we love.  

Keys
I have kept a key from every space I've lived in, even from some of the places I've worked. Keys entered my artist practice with the Ghost Train. I included old keys in the show bags as one of 13 spooky things. I found out more about the practice of wearing keys as a way of implying that one had property or access. For this purpose large decorative but useless keys were produced that only had a symbolic function. Then most touching was the story of how many refugees carry their door key with them, not knowing if they will return and or if there will be anything to return to. 
Symbols of security and place, perhaps of power and possession, keys are also questions. What do they allow? Where do they let you in? What do they secure? 

 -   Helen Britton