Stewart Helm
Plague of Pins and Needles
All bids
| Year | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Medium | Pen on paper |
| Dimensions | 21.3 x 29.7 cm |
| Top pick | Katharine Hamnett CBE, fashion designer |
About the work
From a series of drawings of different plagues visited on the human body, this one refers to pain and the difficulty of pins and needles caused by peripheral neuropathy, showing the figure walking with difficulty.
The plagues were drawn from March 2020 until mid-November, reflecting the uncertainty of the times and the revenge of nature on humans.
About the artist:
Born 1960 Hertfordshire, Stewart Helm lives and works in London and Buenos Aires. Graduated from Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London.
Helm has been a figurative artist all his adult life, but in the last seven years has begun to make work with no specific reference other than its need to be drawn. The more complex the drawing, the more involved Helm gets and the drawing itself guides and tells him something, whether it’s an abstract mental concentration, a passage into nature, or fractal forms that split, grow, contort and make their own journey on the page. He is interested in putting shapes on a page that give breath to what it is to be alive, human and subject to all the complexities of the universe. He thinks of the drawings as maps to reason, mindfulness and the beauty of life on Earth.
Selected solo exhibitions include Under different Circumstances, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2004); Feed Me, Nigel Coates Gallery, London (2000); Man and Nature, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (2000); and Numimous, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (1998). Selected group exhibitons include TEW Galleries Salon Show, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (2017); TEW Galleries; Portraits & Still Life with Haidee Becker & Isabelle Melchior, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (2016); Natural Selection, The Fine Art Society, London (2013); Jibby Bean, London (2004); Under Different Circumstances, The Contemporary Atlanta Art Center (2004); The British Are Coming!, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (2002); Gallery Artist, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (2000); Exquisite Corpse, Jibby Bean, London (1999); Sacred, Galerie Timothy Tew, Atlanta (1998); Projet Unité, Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation, Firminy (1993); The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (1991); and A walk on the Wild Side, Pomeroy Purdy Gallery, London (1990).
Awards include the Folio Society Award, London (1984).
