Excellence in art
Helga Groves enrolled at Caboolture SHS in 1974, graduating Year 12 in 1978. She was strongly connected to two subjects: Art and Speech & Drama. Helga participated in various school plays and stage performances. She was most passionate about Art, winning the 1975 Junior Art Competition and she designed the cover of the School Magazine in 1977. Appreciating the support and encouragement provided by her Art teachers, Helga excelled in her Year 12 Art theory exam, influencing her decision to pursue Art as a career. She also acknowledges her father George Groves, a former Deputy Principal at Caboolture High, for instilling in her a love of books, and the influence of her family in creating a strong appreciation of Arts and Culture.
Helga studied Art in Sydney, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1987, a Graduate Diploma of Visual Arts in 1988 and a Master of Visual Arts in 2000. Helga became a full-time professional artist in 1997. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, three-dimensional forms, drawing and animation. Her artworks address concepts relating to natural phenomena, geophysical processes and geological time. She has an extensive exhibition history both nationally and abroad, having held 40 solo exhibitions since 1989. Helga has been the recipient of important international residencies between 1992 and 2010 such as the Asialink Hanoi Studio in Vietnam, Cité International des Arts in Paris and the Australia Council for the Arts Helsinki Studio in Finland, as well as receiving several Australia Council for the Arts research grants. In 1997 she won the highly prestigious Moët & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship to France and in 2015 won the ROI Prize in Melbourne.
Major public collections where Helga's works are held include: the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, GAGOMA in Brisbane and State Galleries in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, the University of Queensland Art Museum in Brisbane and Monash University in Melbourne, the Queensland Children's Hospital and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital as well as private collections in both Australia and internationally.