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Evelyna Helmer: The Understanding & Exploiting of Materials

Art Lovers | 27 January 2022

Written by Amelia Pontifex

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“Collage is free. Anything is possible. There’s no empty canvas, only radical potential, endless inspiration and ever-shifting possibilities.”

A horse-headed figure poses in front of a purple building. A metallic beach ball floats over a plinth. A woman stands in a room where the floor appears to melt underneath her.

These are the ideas, themes and images that artist Evelyna Helmer touches on across her work. Originally from America, Helmer now lives and works in Australia. Drawing inspiration from different artistic movements and styles, music, cinema and literature, Helmer’s practice plays with various mediums like oil painting, drawing, watercolour, collage, sculpture, photography and more recently, video-making. Helmer’s work primarily explores the visual language of symbols, icons and images and their contexts in their environments and nature.

“It’s only when you really understand a material that you can exploit all its qualities”.

Originally from Chicago Illinois, Evelyna Helmer now lives and works in Australia, but frequently works out of studios in both Florida and Chicago. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, as well as post-graduate certificates in Photography, Fine Art and Horticulture.

EVELYNA HELMER

Helmer’s practice has been framed by her study of art history at university and her classical training of the Masters while also working at prestigious commercial galleries.

“I learnt art in a very traditional way in London. I really wanted to learn about people, I wanted to understand that traditional education. I started with charcoal, then sculpture. A very classical training. It can at times be confining and stifling, but with the changing times now, I’m forced to free myself with my materials and explore new ways of doing things. It reminds me of the quote by Picasso that says, “it took me four years to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child”. You need to learn that technique, the education and then you need to free yourself from it at the same time.”

“I think that a knowledge of art history is essential to being an artist, especially with what’s happening in the world now with NFT’s and the uses of Classical imagery in Contemporary art. You have to know the past in order to go forward. Many artists understand what is happening now and so they are looking back into art history and reimagining it.”

Evelyna’s practice has also been informed by her many literary, cinematic and musical influences. Her works are influenced by what she reads and hears, well-crafted sentences, the compressed language of poetry, even lyrics of a song. She will even be inspired and visualise compositions while attending readings and performances. Poets such as Emily Dickenson and Terrence Hayes, old Blues musicians such as BJ The Chicago Kid and artists such as René Magritte, Adrian Ghenie, Jeffrey Smart, Kerry James Marshall and Hannah Hoch, all play integral roles in Evelyna’s compositions, the endless possibilities available and the platform from which she can create new pieces.

The work of the German artist Hannah Hoch has recently captured Evelyna’s artistic attention. Hoch’s collaged images and photomontages speak to the horror of living during the Weimar Republic.

Hannah Hoch, 1973. Photo by Will / ullstein bild via Getty Images.

Hannah Hoch, 1973. (Photo by Will / ullstein bild via Getty Images)

“I love seeing the female perspective of those experiences and the Surrealist works she created that spoke to those experiences. Now that I’m more experienced, I like to look back on the work of other pioneering women and those female experiences for how they forged a path. Collage is free. Anything is possible. There’s no empty canvas, only radical potential, endless inspiration and ever-shifting possibilities. It is a sensory experience, in the raw physicality of this practice, because you are cutting, feeling textures, working with a lot of movement. It’s inclusive, accessible and radically hybridised and always evolving. And everything is possible, it’s a visual language. It’s the tension between these images and the language between them. We’re bombarded constantly with imagery and this is a way for me to process it all.”

Evelyna Helmer - Woman with Angel

Woman with Angel

Due to this bombardment of imagery whether it be through the media or what we see outside, and the ever-changing nature of the imagery were exposed to, Evelyna has a unique practice where she has created a small pochade travel box. This pochard of oil paints, brushes, prepared gesso panels, watercolours, blocks of paper and ink allow Evelyna to document what she sees, hears and reads.

“I also collect ferociously for collage while traveling…. newspapers, magazines, menus, labels, theatre programs…so much so that I will post back periodically to Sydney.”

She explains that “just like puzzle pieces” her recent works were born from moments of both intense chaos and clarity. The resulting works of this process are perfectly harmonious pieces that reflect the flowing creativity and dynamic nature of Evelyna’s practice.

Visit Evelyna’s Shop

Evelyna Helmer’s artworks are on display as part of the Absurd Exhibition.

ART LOVERS AUSTRALIA GALLERY | MELBOURNE

12 Feb. – 3 March

Find out more about the Absurd Exhibition

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