Helen McDonald

Paintings
Written By Lu Ernest Design .

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Helen’s pieces develop intuitively and often have their own journey, which is the joy, the openness to discovery and chance.

  • Helen McDonald’s paintings are abstract spaces inhabited by objects and figures. Working intuitively, she treats the surface as a space for contemplation, seeking to distill something out of the marks and forms. 

    While at college in London in the 90’s, Helen was greatly influenced by British Abstract painters John Hoyland, Basil Beattie and Albert Irvin; drawn to the physicality of painting, the gestures and “stuff of paint”. She studied painting at Chelsea under the guidance of so many great painters, including Noel Forster, Clyde Hopkins & Mali Morris.  

    Working in varying consistencies of acrylic, Helen’s paintings are a continual journey of discovery. She is continually digging beneath the surface, trying to solve the push and pull of abstraction, and finding new ways to limit the marks and urge to disrupt. As such, some pieces are worked on with long gaps of time between start and completion.

  • Helen McDonald has been painting seriously since she was introduced to the work of artists such as Basil Beattie, John Hoyland and Albert Irvin when at College in 1993.  She moved to West London from Reading in 1987 and immersed herself in the cultural scene that was emerging at that time. Various jobs held no interest and she resumed her studies gaining a place to study painting at Chelsea College of Art & Design, graduating in 1998. Brighton called in 2000 and she has been balancing work, painting and photography ever since.

Works

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