Loud and Luminous /  by Helga Salwe

Pleased to be part of this year’s ‘Loud and Luminous’ exhibition, a celebration of Australian women photographers.  This is a picture of my daughter Minna painting a mural on the land where she grew up.

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Workshop: finding beauty in the everyday through photography /  by Helga Salwe

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This one-day workshop is designed to help you discover your own visual language by learning to open and trust your unique intuitive vision. Use your smartphone camera or SLR – whatever makes you feel most comfortable. Great images can be made with either, because it’s not about the camera, its about learning to see and compose. No previous experience is required.

Skills covered will be:

Fundamental compositional styles
The importance of light and colour
Photography as a method of exploration
How to edit
Pathways to print your images
Basic camera functions : ISO, aperture, shutter speeds

Led by photographers Penelope Hunt and Helga Leunig who both hold a Masters in Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts, exhibit widely and have work held in public and private collections.

Penelope received the National Gallery of Victoria Women’s Award and the VCA Creative Scholarship, whilst Helga’s work is held in the National Portrait Gallery and is collected by The Epworth Art Foundation.

The workshop will be held in St Heliers Street Gallery, located in the historic and vibrant Abbotsford Convent, where Helga and Penelope are artists in residence, and will coincide with their current exhibition.

Lunch and morning tea included.

28 October 2018 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

St Heliers Gallery, The Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford, Victoria 3067

For bookings, visit: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=423770&

Exhibition in the works /  by Helga Salwe

In the Canberra Archives there is a collection of more than 300,000 immigration cards, each containing basic information about the migrants who came to Australia after the Second World War. Name, nationality, eye colour, distinguishing scars – and a passport size photograph.  I was captivated by the images of the children in particular, their confused, frightened and brave faces, staples carelessly piercing their tiny bodies.  I’m in the process of editing these pictures for an exhibition to be held at the former Benalla Migrant Camp.

The Other Art Fair /  by Helga Salwe

I'll be showing a selection of my work at the Other Art Fair from the 4th to the 7th of May. The Other Art Fair showcases the work of 100 emerging and unrepresented artists from Australia and New Zealand.

The Faciltiy | 2R Chelmsford Street, Kensington, Melbourne

3 weeks in Havana - an exhibition by Helga Leunig /  by Helga Salwe

The new Epworth Hospital in Geelong has a large and diverse collection of Contemporary Art. It also has a permanent Art Gallery on the ground floor.  I am currently exhibiting a series of 25 photographs taken in Havana, Cuba.  The exhibition runs from the 12th of April to the 7th of July 2017.

Epworth Art Gallery, 1 Epworth Place, Waurn Ponds

Helga Leunig finalist in the 2016 MGA Bowness Prize /  by Helga Salwe

Happy to be a finalist in this years Bowness Prize. 

Established in 2006 to promote excellence in photography, the annual non-acquisitive William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize is an initiative of the MGA Foundation. The Bowness Photography Prize has quickly become Australia's most coveted photography prize. It is also one of the country's most open prizes for photography (1). 

Exhibition dates: Friday 1 Sept – Sunday 16 Oct    |    Announcement and opening: Wednesday 7 Sept

Site of Bonegilla Migrant Camp | 2015

Artist statement: "My mother was born in Germany, and my father in Poland. As refugees in post-war Europe they wanted to get as far away from Europe as possible. My mother never made Australia her home, gradually she lost her mind. My father gave up and died of a broken heart at 59. I’ll never know exactly what happened to them during the war because they’re both dead now, but I’m trying to understand through the fragments I collect. I know my father was captured by the Nazis at 15, and didn’t tell his family he married a German. They thought he died during the war. The children of war-traumatised parents carry the trauma; it’s in our bones, literally in our DNA."

'Heartland' published by Five Mile Press /  by Helga Salwe

In August 2015 'Heartland' was published by Five Mile Press. 'Heartland' is a collaboration between MAPgroup documentary photographers and the Australian Conservation Foundation, whereby all photographs were donated by MAPgroup with the proceeds being donated to the Australian Conservation Foundation.