At Much Marcle: Helena at Hellens

Herefords art week, H.art is a beginning to feel like a treasure hunt. Perhaps and ingeniously that is its intention. Hereford is much like that as a place. It's rural roots, means that dwellings are spaced out by stretches of green countryside, tinted apple orchards and uniform pear trees. Historically Hereford people are very much crafted by their locality. Self reliant and independent. The rural communities are closer that they think. There is pride in doing things right. Pride in following tradition. Pride in acknowledging a way that worked for their forefathers. Pride in communicating this.

Its fitting then, that the trail should lead to Hellens. Its one of the oldest dwellings in England. It's history dating back to 1096 makes the long tree lined stretch up to house feel like a historic horse and cart ride up to the manor. I could list all the important people who have lived here, but that's not the whole point. For me, it's more of the journey that this Jacobian style house has witnessed. The people it met. The people it greeted. And as they say, how many stories its walls have heard.

The point is that Hellen's journey and what she is today is made up from what she has witnessed. The house has evolved. Like a piece of Art. Always evolving.

Its seems also fitting to discover a wonderful gallery space at Hellens and meet Helena Orlowski and Carmel and Nick Stevens-Tooms. Carmel's work an explosion of dynamic colour canvasses constantly moving within themselves. Random yet set by uniformity. Both artists evolve.

Helena's work is a journey from the off. Meeting Helena is like spinning a globe of the world and stopping it. Spin and stop. Deep charcoal portraits, deep linear outline. face on. Drawn in her time in Warsaw. "That was my dark period" A re expression of Socialist Art perhaps. Her work changes again through teaching in England drawing on influences, expressions, a book. The 'Voyage of the narwhal' another journey. Read and re expressed in colour, technically superb illustration. Not directly from the book of course, but a series, a journey within her art.

I bought a print from Helena for my sister in New York. It reads, "rest your wings, but let your dreams soar". How apt, I thought that Helena's art, a journey that every artist and person is on.

Take time to stop and express it....x