Helen Cook

A very loose watercolour portrait of a figure looking at the camera in muted reds and oranges. The paint bleeds in small rivers especially around the eyes and left cheek.

Loose watercolour painting of two clumps of ragwort, yellow flowers with orange centres in a sea of green leaves

MediaBook arts, Painting, Printmaking

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Services

Commissions AcceptedYes

Tuition OfferedYes

Artist's StatementI have backgrounds in art and computational biology, and my work draws comparisons between these different ways of making sense of the world. I use ambiguous and abstracted forms to convey nature's disregard for the strict categories that we impose on the world in trying to understand it. Many of my marks result from natural processes that I allow to develop on their own.

Art StyleSemi-abstract, Impressionistic, Expressionistic

Art SubjectsAbstract, Portrait, Nature

Art Materialswatercolour, paper

Helen Cook's Portfolios

Portraits

Most of these pieces are from my series “April”, in which I painted 35 portraits of the same model in April 2023. These pieces are often very loose, allowing the paint to bleed and run freely on the page. The series explores how different aspects of ourselves are expressed at different times, what we choose to show, and what remains hidden behind a mask.

The double exposure images are from a series “Lucidity” done in collaboration with in situ: theatre, as I created work in response to their performance of Master Builder by Ibsen.

A loose watercolour portrait in red of a woman looking down with strong lighting coming from the left

April 3

April 15

loose watercolour portrait in shades of yellow and brown of a face grimacing and looking like their head is exploding, with strong lighting coming from the left

April 25

loose watercolour portrait in shades of red and blue of a person's face looking forward, with strong lighting coming from the left, abstract watercolour effects make up the majority of the image, with the highlights defining the form of the face

April 29

loose watercolour portrait in shades of blue of a person's face with closed eyes, with strong lighting coming from the left

April 27

loose yellow and pink watercolour portrait of a face screaming

April 4

Double exposure image of a man's face looking startled to the left in teal and looking down thoughtfully in ochre

The Crack in the Chimney

Double exposure image of a yellow woman's face looking up, and a pink version of the same face thinking

The Fire

Weeds

Some flowers are categorised as weeds, but on close inspection are no less beautiful than those that are not slighted with this label. This series presents common so-called weeds abstracted in loose watercolour, the fuzzy edges suggesting a fuzziness to their categorical boundary as well.