A travelling show which was exhibited at The Windsor Hotel in Melbourne VIC, New Collectables Gallery in Fremantle Perth WA, Greenhill Gallery Adelaide SA and Margaret River in WA. The exhibition was added to in the theme as it travelled and works were sold.

Photos of people and the openings:
Melbourne
Adelaide
Perth

The Angel and the Butterfly Man

New Collectables Gallery Perth - 16th September 1998
Windsor Hotel Melbourne - 6^th October 1998
Greenhill Gallery Adelaide -  25th October 1998
Margaret River Galleries - 26th December 1998

 Opening Statement

The angel moves in and around the caterpillar man, sometimes forgetting to let him get to his gold by himself, she finds it hard at times to coerce and drag him into his next stage of life.   He finds his way, but as all good spiritual evolutions go, there are trials and tests he must face himself as he slips back and forward wondering what he is becoming, the confusing metamorphosis stage.

 The story of “The Butterfly Man and the Angel" has come about as a natural progression and retrospection from the artist of her own life over the last few years.

 We are all allowed in on this mythological and romantic alignment to our present day lives and all their seemingly gory details of the struggles of the middle age crisis, marriage breakdowns, co-dependencies, spiritual awakenings and other so called social dilemmas we face as par for the course.   Helen has once again chosen to utilize the things in life we seem to take for granted and given into, like the “sufferings we must live with”.   She has shot them in the jugular with a challenge that they just may be able to be taken differently.

 After her recent exhibition in London, she visited the great houses of Europe and came back with a quest to try and bring back to her audience a link to their myths, by seeing the sameness of the struggles of mankind through all ages.   Just dressed differently, wisdom and choice as to how we live our lives has always been available for us.

 The grapevine of “societies controls” over the centuries has many turns and twists and there are certain keys to “getting back to root” of our plant, where all the good gut feelings live, where we live, love and work happily and according to our real spirit.

 The last years for Helen raised many questions about relationship, society, love, friendship, laws, expectations, values and mostly out of all this “which ones belonged to her”.   These paintings speak of the lessons and observations of all these things.

 The lessons available to us when our marriages break down for example have been the most prized for her and must be for many.   For if we dare to hack through that tangled grapevine, to stop blaming for a minute, we may discover that the partner and friend we once loved the most in our lives was lost only because of somebody else’s expectations of control.   Indeed many centuries of carefully manipulated, fear-based boundaries have been erected by governments, kingdoms and power hungry individuals.   Little “prisons of relationship insurance” any wonder it is hard for us to see.

 Had that love and friendship been left the air and freedom of an open door would it still be alive today?   Would the honeymoon period never end?   Like our other dear close friendships that are not subject to contractual agreements!

 The quest is to dig deeper, than our own backyard.   We need to pull the rule book and the rule makers in for a review.   The “vegemite jar” arguments are a great delight for the rule makers, the masters if limitation as this keeps the focus off them and their crooked and wobbly foundations.

 “Caterpillars and Angels unite

Together we will bring in the light”

Invitation - Melbourne

Invitation Margaret River

Invitation Adelaide

Catalogue Margaret River

Tracey Joynson - Report Card Norton - Herald  Sun Melbourne

The Penguin (Graham Pearce) - Brush With Marriage - Herald Sun Melbourne

Jane Sloane - The Texture of my World - Helen Norton

Arts Today - West Australian

Sam Hardcastle - Brush With Reality - Sunday Times

Norton's Report on View at Margaret River Galleries - AMR Mail

Sarah Palmer - West Coast Arts - The West Magazine