Understory, Helena Gorey

Helena Gorey’s home is a cottage situated in pastoral landscape close to where she grew up, with a view to a field with an almost perfect horizon line. One of her earliest memories is picking blackcurrants in this field planted by her father. The experience of growing up and living in this place and its surrounding nature has influenced much of her work. Hers is not a desire to represent but to distill the essence of this place. Her approach is intuitive and her paintings are developed slowly over time. Her desire is to make works that have a sense of depth but may appear effortless. Paintings are sometimes bisected by a subtle horizontal line suggesting a possible land or seascape and conjure the atmosphere and wonder of nature through a veil of – light, mist, fog and rain. When a sense of completeness is not achieved on first touch a process of layering from light to dark and dark to light is developed in order to arrive home.

In an ongoing exploration of Understory she continues this engagement with nature and focuses on the beauty in humble plants of the hedgerows. Concentrating on the richness of colour and texture in nature she uses titles such as Lady’s Bedstraw, Leaf, Sloe Berry and Brindled. The scale, form and installation of these paintings are determined by the architecture of the long narrow path like space of the upstairs gallery at the Customs House, with a nod to the remnants of sessile oak woodlands at Brackloon just outside Westport and the Gallery facing the sea at Clew Bay. She attempts to create an immersive sense of landscape without trying to representing it.

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

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