“There is a meditative quality to Helen’s work, both in the way she works and the feeling you get as the viewer, looking inwards through layers of paint and pigment which tell a story of the parts of the world around us that often go unseen, yet are familiar in our subconscious memory”. Rhiannon Cottam, The Summerhouse Gallery
Intuitive Abstract Oil Paintings
Paintings imbuing a liminal quality, rooted in memories, emotion and connection
Helen Leaver's practice uses pentimento and palimpsest to explore the transience of time and memory. Her intuitively-led process unfolds over a period of time through cycles of construction and destruction, moving between the conscious and unconscious, embracing and harnessing serendipity.
Helen says, “I returned to painting later in life- after some serious life events, and I'm finding that my art practice is enriching my human experience, it fills me up. I am also an avid poetry reader, and sometimes writer, using lines of poetry as starting points. I'm gently discovering that painting is my way of understanding my feelings, memories and ultimately cultivating connection.
I’m not a planner, I'd get too bored. I'm happy to explore, investigate, release and process my experience, patiently applying veils of oil paint, excavating back to reveal pops of colour, always coming back to emotion.
I paint from my heart, its my path to connect with the part of me that has no beginning or end”.
As visual meditations, Helen’s paintings offer the viewer a polite invitation to slow down from this busy, all consuming, instantly gratified modern world, and pause awhile, reflect on their own emotions, or ponder on a fond memory.
BIO
West Country born, now in her 8th year based in Cornwall UK, Helen embarked on the intensive year-long St. Ives School of Painting ‘Porthmeor Programme 2023’ and has exhibited and sold work in St. Ives, Falmouth, Newquay and Truro. Her work is now in private collections throughout the UK, USA, Germany, Austria and New Zealand.
Helen is represented by The Summerhouse Gallery, Marazion, Cornwall.
