HELEN L.ROBERTSON is a self confessed thalassophile. A what? A thalassophile. Someone who is drawn to the sea, a lover of the sea in all its moods.
The urge to be by the sea, has been with Helen since she was a child. She would long for the summer holidays when, each year, her family would go to Bamburgh in Northumberland and spend two weeks in a caravan. They would spend the days playing for hours in the sand, arranging shells or building sand sculptures.
Her love of the sea has been undimmed since childhood and it shines through her paintings. She has lived on the west coast of Scotland in Glenshiel near the Isle of Skye since graduating from art school and continues to explore the Scottish coastline and islands.
“Discovering a new beach or pocket of sand, fills me with great excitement and I cannot wait to pack my rucksack with as limited a palette as I can bear, paper/sketchbook, easel and a board and get down onto the sand and rocks.”
Your paintings are in mixed media. What is your process?
Painting to me is a dance, a battle, a puzzle, a need.
I combine the free flowing, fluidity of acrylic inks and watercolours along with the more controlled, drawn element of soft pastel. This allows me such a wonderful sense of freedom. It allows the inks to mix and flow, forming unusual surprises. I can then decide what areas to draw into, to give form and detail with the pastel.
I spend just as much time deciding where not to add the pastel as I do deciding where to add it, as I want to preserve the lovely fluid qualities of the inks and give the eye an inquisitive journey around the composition.
Light is the the essential element in my work. If there’s no light then I’m not really inspired. I’m continually looking for the light, that fleeting moment when it brings the landscape alive. Whether coruscating light on the water or reflected on the wet sand, the light draws me into the landscape and intensifies the shadows giving a sense of form and drama carving out the composition.
Have you been influenced by other artists?
I was greatly influenced by an unfinished portrait by Gustav Klimt of Amalie Zuckerkandl in Vienna. Standing in front of this portrait, I felt an overwhelming sensation of closeness to the artist.
The head is completed in oils, but the bottom half of the painting shows sketchy marks of the sitters body. The fact that you can see beneath the surface of the finished painting was so exciting to me. And so, I’m trying to combine paint and line in my paintings, often leaving some of the paper surface below visible and open. Spaces to breathe juxtaposed with more intense areas of line and colour.
Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl by Gustav Klimt
How did this exhibition evolve?
This body of work shows that elusive moment when the sun finally breaks through the clouds sending patches of light kissing the land and sea. I’m drawn to the tideline, where the surface of the wet sand softly mirrors the sky above, the seaweed a tangle of musical notes recording where the sea once reached.
I love using a full range of tone from that almost blinding glimmering light on the water to the deepest darkest tones.
Some of these works have been painted en plein air, whilst the larger works have been done in my studio, using sketches made on site, along with many photographs.
What is the aim in your painting?
I am trying to evoke the feeling of being there, the taste of salt on your lips, wind in your hair and sand between your toes, I want to draw the viewer in and give them that sense of being right there with me.
NORTHERN TIDES — Seascapes and Harbour Paintings by HELEN L.ROBERTSON and NICOLE STEVENSON runs from 7 September to 5 October.
18.09.2024
