Curated by Ffotogallery this will be the first time for Wales to present a solo exhibition by a female artist.

Known as one of Wales’ most significant contemporary artists, Helen Sear’s practice can be characterised by her exploration of the crossover between photography and fine art, her focus on the co-existence of the human, animal, and natural worlds.

With an exemplary track record for producing high quality, conceptually rigorous work, Helen Sear’s current work shows particular maturity and sophistication, seamlessly moving between expanded notions of photography, sculpture and video, with the artist exhibiting great command of different materials and production processes. These developments, coinciding with renewed interest in and critical acclaim for the artist’s work and profile internationally as well as in Wales, make this the perfect moment for Helen Sear to represent Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice.

Helen Sear’s photographic practice has developed from a fine art background in performance, film and installation work in the 1980s and she continues to explore ideas of vision, touch and the representation of the nature of experience, combining drawing, lens-based media and digital technologies. Her work challenges accepted notions of photography as a documentary and creative medium.

Wales’ first ever female solo exhibition in Venice is led by Ffotogallery; the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales, who will be working with Stuart Cameron, curator of Helen Sear’s first major exhibition at Chapter, Cardiff and longstanding supporter of her work. He has worked with a number of major artists, within Wales and internationally, to develop new work, most recently The Art Party Conference 2013.