Hello, I’m Helen.

I’m an artist based in Cornwall, making bold, colourful work inspired by ordinary things, simple pleasures and the joy of paying attention.

Before returning more fully to my own creative practice, I spent over two decades working across fashion, textiles and design, including founding and running HER Studio London. I worked internationally with brands including Calvin Klein, DKNY, adidas and Seafolly, in a career built around colour, print, pattern and ideas.

Those years also took me around the world, and the places I spent time in continue to shape the way I see. The palms and hard light of Los Angeles, the colour and visual intensity of Mexico and Brazil, Miami’s Art Deco architecture and New York’s energy — I’m still drawn to bold colour combinations, strong shapes and unexpected relationships between things.

Returning to Cornwall has felt, in many ways, like returning to my creative home. Slowing down hasn’t made that visual world disappear; it’s given me the space to notice it differently.

Today I work intuitively with paint, oil pastel, collage and mixed media — layering, cutting, covering things up and putting them back together. My design background still shows up in the way I crop, edit and compose, but I’m much more interested now in following an idea without needing to know where it will end.

Most of my subjects are close to home: plants, fruit, domestic objects and things I notice in my immediate surroundings. The more I look, the more I see.

At the heart of my work is a search for vitality — that feeling of something being properly, wonderfully alive. I’m interested in colour, optimism, humour and simple pleasures, and in the balance between freedom and structure, spontaneity and intention.