HELEN SIMPSON
Oil paintings and pastels
“I am an artist who spends a lot of time staring into flowers. I rarely work from photos or even my own drawings; perhaps they are too still. There is a stillness about a real flower, but a stillness that masks an unceasing journey of transformation. My work is an attempt to convey this paradox of quiet grace, coupled with such inherent movement. Petals can appear to be seemingly floating on air; they can be stretched in readiness to “take off”; they can seem to be sculpted into swirling channels and billowing shapes by an invisible wind, but there is no wind, just a silent suspension in response to light. I work on a scale that is larger than life, so there is space for the viewer to come inside the scene and share the transient energy of this silent sensuous world.”
Ceramics
“In their own way my ceramics are also about the change produced by time. Whether that be in the rocks on the sea shore or in the cycle of a flowering plant.”
BIOGRAPHY
Helen studied art at Banbury College of Art, then at the Royal Academy Schools, London. She regularly shows her work and has had exhibitions in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and London, the most significant being Kew Gardens Gallery, in Kew Gardens London, where she had 30 pictures on show. Her recent solo shows have been at the Oxford Botanic Garden 2015, Wolfson College Oxford 2017, The Malthouse Gallery at East Lambrook Manor Gardens, Somerset, 2021.
Helen teaches pottery and leads art workshops. She moved down from Grimsby to Dorset in April 2005.
website: www.helensimpsonartist.co.uk Instagram: www.instagram.com/helensimpsonartist