Helen is a textile artist based in the UK, exhibiting in the UK and Sydney, Australia.
She concentrates upon the detail found in nature and the landscape recreating the impressions and feelings these evoke through contemporary abstract representation,. Texture, colour and visual design are significant to the interaction with her audience. The textile interpretation of a subject offers further artistic opportunity to involve sensory awareness – the work is both tactile and visually stimulating.
Helen often employs wool felt in her practice, drawing satisfaction from the transformational process and close physical connection that occurs through the hand manipulation of wet felting. This medium allows her artistic vision to be expressed sculpturally as desired. The blend of other fabrics and mixed media with felt presents further interest through play on differences in surface texture, opacity and rigidity. Machine and hand embroidery further enhances the medium by providing both highlighted detail and subtle blending to a work; both distinct line and sympathetic shading. It brings a painterly finesse to an organically formed material.
Originally from Scotland and training as a pharmacist there, Helen completed a PhD in pharmaceutics in London with the intention of following a career in research. However, a family move abroad in 2000 to Basel, Switzerland for 4 years gave her the opportunity to return to her love of textiles and begin a City & Guilds course in Design and Embroidery by correspondence. She continued this study when she subsequently moved to Australia, completing her Diploma in 2016.
After 13 years in Australia, Helen moved back to the UK in 2017, specifically to the Oxfordshire countryside, where she now works from her studio. In addition to her activities in the UK as a member of the Oxfordshire Craft Guild, Prism Textiles and seam collective she is fortunate to continue to teach and exhibit in Australia with Untethered Fibre Artists.
She concentrates upon the detail found in nature and the landscape recreating the impressions and feelings these evoke through contemporary abstract representation,. Texture, colour and visual design are significant to the interaction with her audience. The textile interpretation of a subject offers further artistic opportunity to involve sensory awareness – the work is both tactile and visually stimulating.
Helen often employs wool felt in her practice, drawing satisfaction from the transformational process and close physical connection that occurs through the hand manipulation of wet felting. This medium allows her artistic vision to be expressed sculpturally as desired. The blend of other fabrics and mixed media with felt presents further interest through play on differences in surface texture, opacity and rigidity. Machine and hand embroidery further enhances the medium by providing both highlighted detail and subtle blending to a work; both distinct line and sympathetic shading. It brings a painterly finesse to an organically formed material.
Originally from Scotland and training as a pharmacist there, Helen completed a PhD in pharmaceutics in London with the intention of following a career in research. However, a family move abroad in 2000 to Basel, Switzerland for 4 years gave her the opportunity to return to her love of textiles and begin a City & Guilds course in Design and Embroidery by correspondence. She continued this study when she subsequently moved to Australia, completing her Diploma in 2016.
After 13 years in Australia, Helen moved back to the UK in 2017, specifically to the Oxfordshire countryside, where she now works from her studio. In addition to her activities in the UK as a member of the Oxfordshire Craft Guild, Prism Textiles and seam collective she is fortunate to continue to teach and exhibit in Australia with Untethered Fibre Artists.
