Helen Eager (born 27 September 1952,

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

) is an Australian artist with an exhibition history of over 40 years. Her work 'Tango' was selected for the Inaugural

Circular Quay Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the Syd ...

Foyer Wall Commission at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney in 2011. An initial temporary site-specific commission, 'Tango' is now permanently on display in a new location at MCA. Eager's paintings, works on paper, video's and prints are held in national and state collections, including

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

Art Gallery of NSW The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

and the

Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...

Education

Eager first studied art at the South Australian School or Arts in Adelaide from 1972 to 1975. Accepting a

Visual Arts Board The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

Grant for study in Europe and United States; she studied at

Kala Art Institute Kala Art Institute is a community arts non-profit organization, artist residency, art classes, and an art gallery, founded in 1974, and located in two locations in Berkeley, California. About They offer facilities for printmaking, photography, ...

, from 1981 to 1982. She completed her Masters of Visual Arts at College of Fine Art, New South Wales in 1990, and an artist residency at the Greene Street Studio, New York, in 1988.

Early work

Eager first became known for her paintings of familiar objects such as chairs, tea cups and vases. Manipulating colour and light, "her art makes us more responsive to, and even wary of, otherwise benign interiors." From 1988 Eager work leaned more and more to abstraction. Her compositions explore links between shapes. For ten years those shapes were triangles, although the shapes are currently multi-sided. The interplay between colour and light recurs in Eager's abstract work. Her 2021 survey of 40 years of drawing articulated these developments.

Exhibitions

Eager held solo exhibitions at Sydney's

Watters Gallery Watters Gallery (1964–2018) was a private art gallery in Riley Street Sydney, Australia, run by Frank Watters (1934 – May 2020) with his business partners and friends Geoffrey and Alex Legge. It was influential and well-known, hosting exhibit ...

between 1977 and 1991 and Utopia Art Sydney from 2009. Other solo exhibitions were held in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, and

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

. As a print-maker and painter, Eager has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the Tokyo Print Biennale, Japan, 1979, and ''Sydney Contemporary, 2019'',

Carriageworks Carriageworks is a multi-arts urban cultural precinct located at the former Eveleigh Railway Workshops in Redfern, Sydney, Australia. Carriageworks showcases contemporary art and performing arts, as well as being used for filming, festivals, fa ...

, Sydney.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eager, Helen 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists Living people 1952 births Women's Art Register artists