I was born and grew up in West Dorset, England. This extraordinary landscape has many ancient hill forts and woodlands that mark the land and stretch down to a coastline abundant in fossils from the Jurassic period. Growing up in the countryside surrounded by farmland, it is possible to become aware of the cycles of life and death at an early age.

Moving through the years this deep awareness of time, and the earth passing through many phases, permeated my imagination and being, as did the dramatic skies.

It is a challenge to try to capture something that is moving and changing all the time, with painted brushstrokes – the shifting clouds, colours, …every second the landscape is made new by subtle transformations. Transience and the living presence within the landscape are constant themes now, in my work, as well as drawing from geology and archaeology.

We seem to exist between two worlds – that of the material and that of the metaphysical and I often wonder about this. I am interested in how people felt in the past as human beings, how they found meaning in their lives and why they often turned to their art as a vehicle for ritual and connecting with forces beyond their control or understanding.

‘Messenger’. Oil on Linen

The atmosphere of a landscape is memorable, whether quiet and foreboding or elemental in its expression. There is a conversational and dynamic relationship with it; life responding to life. When visiting an ancient site or powerful place a kind of time travelling seems to occur, a rushing of images, physical responses to material and matter, beauty and terror always. Mortality. Immortality. What are we? Half animal, half angel, bound by gravity yet lifted by conscious direction or movement. Caught between, failing, falling, overcoming – always at the edge of our own experience and understanding.

‘It is not necessary to understand in order to create – it’s necessary to create in order to understand’

– Cecil Collins

The experience of making something from raw materials feels primal and fundamental, the coldness of clay, the smell of linseed oil and the familiar feel of wooden tools or brushes. Over time the process of choosing colour and the quality of a paint becomes unconscious and instinctive… hundreds of decisions are made – from minute changes to complete destruction of previous work. The painting becomes a vehicle for ideas and feelings that are explored on an unconscious level during the building of layers.

My process begins with the creation of a spontaneous, chaotic ground from which images begin to emerge. The painting evolves and develops as different forms manifest from the space. Some forms are significant and remain to create a scene – others are layered over and fall away into the background. The original feeling or concept of the work is held in mind as the painting develops – almost like an archaeological dig it is an exciting way of working; you have to give yourself up to the process.

I believe that painting is a combination of elements; purpose and care in application and at the same time remaining open to being guided by what appears, almost ‘listening’ to the painting. creating form from the unformed. It is an equal relationship of action and humility or yielding. Relationship. The painting stares back.

Being alert to the images emerging and what they want to become. Being brave enough to destroy potentially hours of work, to fulfil a new more compelling image.

My intention is for the central image to be found at the completion of the painting and yet for previous layers to remain visible as an evolution of the work. It is a work full of desire and risk and unknowing. The over-all image can evolve into something of great power or just be a momentary description of something transient. The paintings evoke questions and require one to go deeper. Inviting us to be involved in a process.

A space is created where the inner and outer worlds of human experience touch and something is released, an interface, images emerge – and I contemplate the feeling of a deeper presence that permeates all. Working with these images is intimate and exposing. It is exposing of strength, weakness, despair, beauty, and spirit.

‘Primordial Dance’. Oil on Panel

Time is irrelevant within the painting process. The paintings seem to reach backwards and forwards in the drawing out of form from within a space. The final painting often revealing layers of what came before, what is – and even a suggestion of what may come to be.

Painting is a place in which to attempt to describe the indescribable – direct, fluid, and honest in its clarity and contradiction. A deep current holds the world together.

There is a tension between a mind seeking to explain – and a mind yearning to experience. Some ignored, some followed, some glimpsed…to catch the new feeling as it comes into consciousness hold it long enough to understand something and then let it go. So, for me, painting truthfully reflects an experience of life.

‘Art is never finished, only abandoned’

– Leonardo da Vinci

‘Song’. Oil on Panel

‘Threshold’. Oil on Canvas

‘I have wrestled with the angel, and I am stained with light, and I have no shame.’

– Mary Oliver

Today a new figure appeared, and old figures receded and then a new landscape began amidst the painting. I am looking into the painting and shapes and forms emerge. I work with them and wonder at them. Sometimes it makes my eyes tired – to look so much – sometimes it moves me to tears when a situation is revealed clearly to me, from my life within the painting, like a scene from a play. The characters are ambiguous yet somehow more real than we are because they are translucent and can become many other things.

I do not find this painting easy as it seems to be unclear where to put my attention at present.

The feeling of Mary Oliver’s quote is linked to our conversation about ‘knowledge’ and awareness of feeling… like having seen it all before……that when some transformations have taken place within a human soul it is impossible to then un-see – being stained with light reminds me of this blessing/curse of being open. I do not know where this dimension is. It is not beside me or above me, in my mind or even my heart… it is breath and particles of light … It is stepping through into something terrible and blissful all at once…

– Letter to a friend, Helen Garrett

‘A World of Possibilities’. Oil on Panel

There appears to be a deep unconscious yearning for connection inside of us that reaches for a place of reconciliation and harmony. I believe this to be inherent and purposeful – to be connected to and expressing the life force that runs through and outside of us.

What is this urge to connect with material around us and try to bridge our inner and outer world of experience? Could it be that working with ideas and material is essential for our evolution as humans in a meaningful way, as well as in the context of technology and survival.

Art can shift us into a profoundly different view of time and timelessness. We realise that our imagination can hold access to all time and a vital experience of what it is to be human.

The world seems disheartened, disenchanted, uneasy. Many people talk of endings and one day new beginnings. My children talk of futures unimagined. I have seen hopelessness in people’s eyes, I have seen despair and I have also seen the transforming qualities of love.

My paintings are an expression of the constant dimension of calm and presence experienced beneath and amidst the tempest of living. The timeless quiet.

We are in our time and of our time, whether we be an ant, an oak, or the turning of a great planet. Therefore, my hope is not to add to the unease, but to strengthen hope, trust and Illumination.

‘Running Stag’. Monoprint on Paper

Take away freedoms in society yes, you take away the risk of rebellion, but you also lose the flourishing human, the risk taker, the inventor, the visionary, and slowly culture starts to diminish.

To be creative is to be connected to and expressing the life force that runs in and outside of us. As Humans, we create naturally. Some people are not ‘more creative’ than others. It is just that the intensity of needing to express something can be at different levels and for different reasons.

We think, therefore, we create. We invent, we worry, we imagine, we problem solve, we interact with materials – we make things. We make things that are external yet shaped from an internal feeling or idea. Artists are people who have decided to commit their lives to this, as a work and as a way of being in the world. Art making can expose us to the complexity of the things that we feel and experience.

We are no different to humans of long ago in that we seem to extend ourselves to gain a greater understanding. This extension, this inner yearning can result in a tangible form whether a sculpture, painting, or a dance. It is a place in which to wonder through our own experience – something real in an unreal world.

I’m for an art that includes the wider experience of humanity; the hopes and whispers of dreams within us, the elusive glint of deep knowing, the earth and decay and destruction, the vitality seeking its flow in a movement greater than we can ever imagine.

Art, at its best opens us to meaning beyond the confines of society. It can connect us in a healthy way. It can strengthen community and ignite growth in human culture. Art and witnessing Art can shift us into a profoundly different view of time and timelessness. We realise that our imagination can hold access to all time and experience. Therefore, we are truly free.

‘Angel’. Oil on Panel

The interior country of the human imagination, where rivers and mountains and stars, sun and moon and seas, trees and birds, exist not as natural objects but as imaginative experiences. It is a world of correspondences, not arbitrary but intrinsic; for in the Paradisal state meaning and being are indivisible, are the same thing.

– Kathleen Raine describing the artist Cecil Collins’ world

Studio. West Dorset

Photo by Anthony Avison

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Following a degree in Fine Art, Helen has been working as a professional artist selling paintings privately and through representing galleries internationally. She also leads workshops for the public under the name of ‘Drawing into Life’.

Helen’s career has spanned many areas of study and experience including working with Somatic intelligence and leadership embodiment practitioners, mental health service providers, Art therapists, university students, schools, and museums, with diverse groups of people and within a variety of community settings.

‘Connecting with a sense of vitality and flow forms the heart of my work and my intention is to offer a space where participants can work at their own pace and regain a sense of confidence and surprise at their own abilities and potential. Within this teaching is an invitation to look again at the unique essence of the individual and the relational possibilities within each human life.

I use drawing and natural form to stimulate ideas within a group bringing imagination and an original approach, often using art, music, poetry, or movement to focus attention and open dialogue. My aim is to encourage personal creative vision, compassion and resilience using Art as a medium in which to explore transformation on all its levels’.

Helen Garrett 2023

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www.helengarrett.com

All images copyright and courtesy of Helen Garrett

Art, Creativity, Imagination