“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 holding a liminal quality, yet rooted in memory, emotion and connection
Helen’s oil paintings act as portals to tranquillity, they are polite invitations offering the viewer an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect. She finds the act of painting a soothing and meditative experience and that materialises into calm, considered and contemplative paintings.
Helen seeks out quiet, still places and spends a lot of her time noticing and meditating. (She was trained how to be a facilitator of meditation by a Scottish Buddhist). “I observe things that often go unseen: repeated shapes in windows and doorways, the unassuming colours and textures of lichens on stonework or the tyre marks in the beach sand. I am especially drawn to liminal places like steps, entrances, the tideline and daydreams. The in-between spaces, which I find so intriguing, are a rich and ripe ground to explore with curiosity. In Japan, where I’ve travelled to twice, the gaps between spaces or objects is called ‘ma’, and its the edges that interest me most- such as the shapes of the spaces between two waves or the outlines of tired worn-down patination at thresholds.
About my art process, like a type of shorthand, I’ll use my own symbols and codes to represent what I see, feel and hear and when I reach the sanctuary of my garden studio in mid-Cornwall, I’ll decipher the notes made in my little sketchbook and relay them onto the painting surface. These initial marks marinade in my subconscious and its in that brief moment, where it feels like I’m dreaming but before I realise I’m awake, where I’ll see colour palettes and compositions.
Through patiently adding and editing veils of oil paint, incorporating found Cornish earth pigments and oil sticks, I feel entirely present and in my body at that moment.
The act of painting helps me to access a deep innate connection, where all time collapses into the now, through layering… deconstructing… recalling…”
BIO
West Country born, now in her 8th year based in Cornwall, 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.
