My paintings are reflections of my present & past life experience.
F
or the most part I grew up in rural areas in the great British Countryside. First Yorkshire, home to the Bronte sisters & “Wuthering Heights” & later Snowdonia a mountainous national park in North Wales.
Wales is spectacularly beautiful, often bleak, wet and windy but is also a microcosm of the cycle of life.
Living in such an environment, surrounded by farms, cows and sheep, one becomes aware of life, death and everything in between.
I maintain the Welsh part of myself by incorporating the natural world into my paintings in the form of landscapes, still lives or perhaps insects buzzing around a figure.
College brought me to Italy and my fascination with the figure grew.
My paintings will always tell a story
bridging the past, present & the mythic.
I
had already fallen in love with the romantic aristocratic ladies of Sir Thomas Gainsbourough but Italian figurative painting seemed more guttural, brutal and dramatic. Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi became immediate favorites and will always be company in my studio along with more contemporary artists like Lucien Freud.
Many of my models are people I know. They may become a religious or mythological character in my work. I also incorporate their personality into the painting along with the relationship I may have with them. Often natural objects I find, or are in season, are added and relate to my own or universal symbols.
A pomegranate, plucked from a friend’s garden, represents the passion of Christ, maternity, restoration, re birth and perhaps the blood from the decapitated head of Saint John the Baptist. A blood orange also represents the passion and blood of Saint John, peacock feathers, eternity and the butterfly the soul or anima.
My experience living in Florence, surrounded by great beauty, art and amazing new and interesting people will continue to inspire me. Art of the medieval world and the Renaissance has fueled my interest in religious symbolism and the many saints who seem to circle you almost every day.
About Helen
Born in Great Britain but moved to America to attend college where I went to Rhode Island School of Design in Providence Rhode Island and later Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Having obtained both undergraduate and graduate degrees in painting I remained in America for another twenty years, teaching painting and drawing at the college level. The last seven years were spent teaching at Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. Throughout this time I exhibited my painting in galleries in various cities including New York, Chicago, Washington DC and Philadelphia.
I fell in love with Italy in 1987 while studying in Rome. The love affair blossomed and I returned to Italy as often as possible for study, teaching and sometimes just for fun. In 2009 I had a window of opportunity to return to Europe and follow my dream to live and work in Italy. Having studied in Florence for the previous four summers I chose Florence as my new home.
In 2012 I passed the eight hundred hour, one year course, all in Italian, to become a fully licensed Florentine Tour Guide. Life is good, always an adventure, filled with beauty, good food, wine and good friends. I work as a guide during the season and paint the rest of the year. I am at my heart a painter and continue to exhibit my work in America and Florence.
had already fallen in love with the romantic aristocratic ladies of Sir Thomas Gainsbourough but Italian figurative painting seemed more guttural, brutal and dramatic. Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi became immediate favorites and will always be company in my studio along with more contemporary artists like Lucien Freud.
Many of my models are people I know. They may become a religious or mythological character in my work. I also incorporate their personality into the painting along with the relationship I may have with them. Often natural objects I find, or are in season, are added and relate to my own or universal symbols.