By Melissa Barnard, part of the 2024 Scarborough Art Show team

Following studies at the Sydney National Art School and a period of teaching art in secondary schools, Helen McCosker has spent the majority of her career as an illustrator of magazines and books about gardening, travel and the adventures of chartered accountants. Her first children’s picture book which she wrote and illustrated, The Nightfish, was published by The Five Mile Press. Helen currently has several more manuscripts under construction.

Helen has exhibited her drawings and paintings regularly in Sydney and regional centres, winning several awards, including Exhibition Winner at the Thirroul Seaside and Arts Festival in 2017 and winner of its Drawing section in 2022. She was a finalist in the prestigious National Capital Art Prize in 2023 with her collection of drawings and small assemblages entitled A Final Species.

Helen is currently working on a collection of wood and found object assemblages based on fairy tales. She is a proud member of the Illawarra branch of the Australian Fairy Tale Society and brings this sensibility to many of her detailed drawings and assemblages with an entrancingly magical and curious style.

We asked Helen about her art practice and inspiration.

From where do you draw your creative inspiration?

My interest in the art of illustration was sparked quite early in life by a wonderful old bookcase at my grandmother’s house, stacked with illustrated encyclopaedias and children’s ‘Wonder Books’.

The latter were collections of fairy tales and myths with pictures by illustrators from the late 19th and early 20th century – the ‘Golden Age of Picture Books’ – Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and William Heath Robinson, to name a few. I was hooked and now contemporary illustrators like Shaun Tan, Armin Greder, Lisbeth Zwerger and a host of others continue to inspire me, so that even quite abstract drawings of mine have a narrative thread.

My first children’s picture book, The Nightfish. was published in 2006 by The Five Mile Press. It features a series of oil paintings inspired by the coastal landscape around Bateman’s Bay and the luminous night sky above it. I love creating illustrations for children that aim to capture the feeling of magic and wonder that I felt as a child about to settle down with a new book.

How do your art practice and your life intersect?

In my works I like to use found objects as well as work with pastels, graphite pencils and oil paints. Tangles of fishing line found washed up on our local beaches provide the initial stimulus for my drawings. Their lively patterns and sinuous lines have a sinister beauty, especially when teamed with assemblages made from other detritus coughed up by the sea. Broad washes of pastel pigment are overlaid with lines of coloured graphite pencil before being worked into with an electric eraser until a rhythmic pattern emerges. It’s a slow and almost hypnotic process.

Can you tell us a little about your personal artistic journey?

After four years at art school and some teaching I decided that illustration was what I really wanted to do and so I spent the next 30 years illustrating magazines and books.

I am currently working on a series of wood and found object assemblages based on classic fairy tales, so I seem to have come full circle back to that old entrancing bookcase at my grandmother’s house!

What will you be bringing to the Scarborough Art Show this year?

My collection of works A Final Species will be shown in the 2024 Scarborough Art Show. An important part of the drawn and assembled relics in this work are the curious and creative titles, which were provided by my grandchildren Theo and Heather who attended/still attend Scarborough Public School, so that is another way in which my life and art come together in a real way. Heather, for example anointed her critter with the title ‘The Wigglyticker’ and added, ‘It lives in old watches and hot sand and keeps time going’ … a great thought for an art work which poses the question: ‘What would a museum of the future display as remnants of earth’s human occupation?’

What do you enjoy about the Scarborough Art Show? 

The Scarborough Art Show is a welcome chance to showcase art from all over the Illawarra to a broad audience – and it celebrates a community that I am very grateful to be a part of.

Scarborough Art Show will be back at Scarborough Public School on Saturday, October 12 (10am-5pm) and Sunday, October 13 (10am-2pm). Admission: $5 for adults, $3 concession, Children under 13 enter free of charge.