HELEN STEELE
About Helen Steele:
My compositions are never preconceived, yet my themes are recurrent:
The use of the figure as the means of investigating various psychological states: harmony, serenity, anxiety, isolation….
The figure is my starting point, not my true subject. My subjects are human presence and absence. My approach is intuitive, suggesting rather than detailing. As I work and rework my canvas the image appears sometimes only to elude me then to reassert itself much later.
I work in multiple layers with buried images and words. Paint is wiped off and layers are peeled yielding the emerging image. Symbolic markings, personal imagery, shapes and words appear, questions arise. Intimacy is translated through the sensuality of line, the simplest and subtlest of my tools. the line can be bold and assertive or sublime and quite sensual.