Dr Helena Bezzina

Artist, Art Therapist, Educator and Researcher

I am an artist, art therapist, educator and researcher. Based on Awabakal and Worimi country, I draw on my art practice as research in the field of Health and Wellbeing. I received a Bachelor of Arts from COFA University of NSW and work with mixed media with a focus on drawing and ink work.

Working in interpretive programming within museums and galleries for over fifteen years provided me with firsthand experiences of the positive transformative effects of viewing, making, and discussing art. This experience, along with working with seniors living with Alzheimer's and youth with mental health issues, has motivated me to focus my current art-led research as an inquiry into the role of museums and galleries as potential sites for mental health and wellbeing. My art practice is intuitive, and inquiry based, and I draw on art as an alternate way of knowing, exploring concepts and ideas through mark making.

New and Archival Works From the Studio

The recent phenomena of Zoom inspired my work during the ongoing COVID pandemic. I have easily spent over 5 hours a day with work, social and community meetings on zoom. This is an experience I have chosen to explore in this current project, Zoom Gardens. Drawing on a phenomenological approach, I focus, through drawing, on the connections we established as we function within this living garden, tending to each other, together side-by-side, but essentially alone. Drawing is cathartic; it allows me to focus and look again, connecting me to the luminous figures within zoom, a liminal in-between space, this zoom garden. 

over 30 rectangle images with varied coloured backgrounds with a charcoal illustration on top. Laid out in the zoom window style on a gallery wall

A person looking at the art on the gallery wall

Image of all the portraits on the gallery wall

Zoom Gardens

Unquiet

These drawing are inspired through a search for meaning in an attempt to reconcile an ambivalent relationship to being here on earth because my relationship with the environment is currently very difficult or powerless. This searching for meaning through drawing practices sits well within art therapist Skaife’s (2001) theorising on the intersubjective focus and the centrality of the body in making meaning. Skaife considers art-based processes as making visible what is hidden. Skaife believes drawing can bring attention to the way in which we come to see or make meaning of the world.

Four images: Unquiet, mixed media 1 to 4 2023

Image of a naked bust with a mask on and a tree growing from the top of their head

Image of the top half a naked person with a mask on and plants at the top of the image

Illsutration of a woman with a mask on and colour strips behind her

Charcoal illustration of person with red splot above their head

Helena Bezzina

In the spirit of reconciliation, Helena Bezzina acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today and everyday.

Let's chat!

Helena_Bezzina@yahoo.com

Home

I.D. Series of self-portraits.

These works focus on the process of mark making to both interrogate self and society.

I draw on the therapeutic benefits of drawing, adhering to André Breton’s practice of ‘auto drawing’ to access the unconscious (1933). I am not interested in mimesis or looking for a surface resemblance, but rather grasps at the inner state of my psyche or to draw what cannot be put into words.

Charcoal portrait of Helena a white woman with her hair in a bun.

Charcoal illustration of Helena in graduation outfit with reds and greens being used.

Charcoal illustration of Helena with flowers

Close up charcaol illustration of helena

Charcoal illustration of Helena with an orange strip behind her

Charcoal illustration of Helena front on with blue tones.

Charcoal illustration of Helena looking over her shoulder

Charcoal illustration of Helena on a 3/4 turn.

Charcoal illustration of Helena looking stern

Mixed Media painting of a boquet of red flowers

Inverted image in black and white of a boquet of flowers

Colourful boquet of flowers with some birds of paridse in the mix.

Black and white illustration of a boquet of flowers

colourful painting for a boquet of flowers

boquet of red flowers in a straight glass vase with a teapot next to it.

Joy: Art as therapy

I engaged in selfcare via a series of still life drawings and paintings, enjoying joy through pure mark making and colour. Art therapist Waller (2015) argues that art making allows people to express feeling and ideas in an alternative metaphorical and symbolic language which supports healing.