Understory, Helena Gorey

Helena Gorey’s is a distinctly lived practice as nature ecology and the environment and specifically her native homeplace of rural Co. Kilkenny is central to what inspires her. This body of work explores the Irish Hedgerow - their traditional purpose was in marking boundaries and separating livestock on farms. This function is now challenged by the increase in mechanised farming practices, while the hedgerow’s importance in terms of biodiversity and function in combating climate change, acting as carbon sinks, has only recently being acknowledges.

Helena uses a fluid process in painting in order to resist the desire for control and attempts to distill rather than represent. Her colour field abstractions are guided by an intuitive process, that emulates what can be seen by looking closely at understory atmosphere and landscape; randomness of form, detail, simplicity, edges, clarity, beauty. Concentrating on the richness of colour and texture she uses the names of native wild plants as titles for paintings; Lady’s Bedstraw, Sloeberry, Woodbine,  sometimes deliberately trying to capture the essence of a particular flower, sometimes recognising the colour or characteristics of a familiar friend. Her paintings are developed organically over time through a process of layering from light to dark and dark to light until they have achieved a sense of depth and completeness. They are both a visual lament and an ode to the beauty and resilience of the natural world.

Published on occasion of Helena Gorey's exhibition in Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland.

Published by Highlanes Gallery
Edition of 300
Hardcover
65 pages
166 x 236 mm
ISBN 9781068663208