Helen S. Tiernan uses her art like an archaeological tool, to interrogate, challenge and explore the many layers and contradictions that lie below the surface of contact history.
From her earliest years at Canberra School of art, Helen’s interest lay in narrative, historical, satirical, and romantic art. She began by using the embossed and relief patterning found in decorative interiors, employing wallpaper as a metaphor in validating and acknowledging the historical female domestic experience, including the claustrophobia and repressive control that creative women experienced within the confines of their homes and family and extrapolated this to Aboriginal women in servitude.