Patterns catch the eyes of many artists and this painting was inspired by the chunky shapes found in artichokes. This oil study was painted from life at Helen's London studio,...
Patterns catch the eyes of many artists and this painting was inspired by the chunky shapes found in artichokes. This oil study was painted from life at Helen's London studio, where it was possible to study the smaller details — like the dark purples behind the artichoke leaves.
The artichoke is a subject that rewards exactly the kind of sustained looking that Helen Perkins brings to her still life work — the overlapping scales of the leaves, the way the geometry repeats with slight variations, the specific greens and purples that sit in the recesses between the bracts. Perkins is primarily self taught, with input from Royal Portrait Society painters, and her approach to still life is the same as her approach to portraiture: the object observed with fresh eyes, without defaulting to what you already think you know about it. Original oil on canvas paper, 21 x 28cm. One-of-a-kind, signed. £325.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Helen Perkins
Helen Perkins is a Derby-born oil painter whose work spans portrait, still life and landscape. Primarily self taught, with sustained input from Royal Portrait Society painters including Sam Dalby and Toby Wiggins, she paints directly from life — a practice that runs through both her formal portrait commissions and the still life studies of pears, sweet peas, cherries and artichokes that make up her current catalogue at Print Club London. She divides her time between studios in Derbyshire and London. Her work has been selected for the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and the Society of Women Artists. Her painting Polly won the Cass Art Emerging Female Artist Award; her portrait Sinead was longlisted for the BP Portrait Award; and she received the Michael Harding Painting Award in 2016. Ten of her portraits toured the North of England as part of the Armstrong Watson Face Forward commission. Paintings from her studio have appeared in ITV’s Liar.