Beautiful, Radiant Things Performance Event

An event held in Gallery FRANK during Helen Davie's exhibition Beautiful, Radiant Things. Bringing together performance, puppetry, food, and textile craft. Beautiful, Radiant Things studies workers’ protests, through needlelace and knit. The work investigates bread as a symbol: of life, of money, of struggle. As a furious but powerless woman, Helen imagines a softer, sweeter world. Helen is a knit, crochet and embroidery artist based in Lancashire. She uses traditionally ‘feminine’ crafts to make bright, loud work that focuses on themes of mental health and identity, from a leftist, feminist viewpoint. Helen’s work is often wearable and she loves the added dimension of showing her work as part of a living, moving body. Her newest work uses traditional needlelace techniques, celebrating the history of lace and the women who made it. Helen has always been interested in the intersection between craft and fine art, especially the connotations of needle crafts as women’s work, and of lower value, as a means to make functional items for the home. Helen also embraces the history of knitting as a subversive and political practice. Mental health and anger are strong themes in Helen’s work, particularly her own experiences with anxiety and unhappiness. While addressing very personal and delicate subjects, Helen’s work is contrastingly humorous, brash and vibrant. She also frequently explores political and social subjects, exploring the relationships between social instability and inner turmoil. Helen’s work also takes inspiration from drag and costume, simultaneously decorating and hiding the body and face.