Helen Back
Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life”
Johann Schiller German poet (1759 – 1805)
Helen an Artist From Bluff Known for her Whimsical Women, thinks outside of the usual self-imposed and subconscious boundaries - creating sculptural dolls. After years of fine tuning her technique, every project ends as a successful finished product. Handmade of a wire or wooden base, fimo hands and facial features with paper mache bodies Helens' dolls are exquisitely clothed in polyester or silk.
Helens' sculptures express timeless remarks and adventurous events about how societies and individuals look at each other and themselves. Her fondness with creating stories has brought her to making mermaids, bathing beauties, nuns, judges and witches among a collection of other creatures.
I think my work is about people ‘breaking’
and how when ‘broken’ we find ways to adapts and rebuild ourselves,
the traits we adopt
and hide,
secrets we keep,
lies we tell,
the crutches we lean on and the strange things we gather around us for comfort and shelter
and then how,
when we are ‘mended’,
we creep slowly back into society to limp along with everyone else.
I liken my work to,
well
lets say,
a cup that has been used often, dropped and broken and glued many times back togethers so that the pieces don’t really fit anymore. It’s still essentially a cup, but now it has a wobble unreliable handle or maybe no handle at all just a sharp piece sticking out where the handle used to be, its all chipped and has a slow leek but its still a cup.
I think that’s my work – well today anyway
Helen Back
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