Helyne Jennings
Abstract mixed media textiles
Maker Showcase
29 July - 23 September 2023
Helyne Jennings is a multi media artist creating experimental abstract textile and paper wall pieces. Graduating from the Royal College Of Art in 1981 Helyne has established herself as a contemporary textile/mixed media artist. She is a member of the Craft Council Directory, Find A Maker, S.E.W, Make Southwest and Devon Artists Network, has exhibited Nationally and Internationally with works in many private and public collections Including the Craft Council Collection.
Helyne creates works through the use of thread, stitch and paint that explore emotion through colour, shape and texture.
ABOUT THE SHOWCASE
“My task in making the pieces for this show has been to focus on developing the digital aspect to my practise by mastering the use of an iPad as another tool for creative mark making, along with other devices that would enable new surfaces that could be combined with my other processes.
It has proved a challenge learning how to ‘own’ the techniques, to create marks and textures with an iPen on a flat screen that come from me and not dictated by the device.
As my work is constantly experimental this is a hugely exciting area to be explored and incorporated into my mixed media work. I am primarily a textile artist but my work combines fabric, paper, stitch, acrylic paints, gesso, metal leaf, dyes, inks, in many layers that are built up and broken down. It’s a messy business and involves much splashing, gestural brushwork and waiting for things to dry, so getting clued up on the digital side in the meantime to create different surfaces seemed like a lot of sense.
I began experimenting by scanning my existing painted remnants of paper and fabric into the computer, enhancing them through various programs and was soon using ‘Alpha Layers’ (getting transparent backgrounds) to create abstract prints on beautiful handmade archival papers. I then researched how to treat fabrics so they could be put through the printer which enabled me to reproduce these thick encrusted surfaces on silks and cottons. This discovery began to snowball leading me to draw and create textures on the iPad that can also be layered, printed and incorporated into my pieces and importantly fitting seamlessly alongside my other techniques.
Part of my aim for wanting to develop this digital aspect is to print fabric as I would love my artworks to be able to be worn, but I also want to combine hand painting with dye and digital print to create one off wearable items.”
INSIDE THE GALLERY
Miniature, mixed media abstract.
EVENTS
Helyne Jennings will be creating a new textile piece from a pop-up studio space in her Maker Showcase. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, she will be printing, ironing, painting and free-motion embroidering the developing piece and you can see her in action, ask questions and learn about her processes. The work in progress will be left in situ between her making days, so keep popping by to see how it evolves!
Helyne will be in the pop-up studio on the following days, 10am - 4pm, but may drop in between these dates as well:
Saturday 29 July
Saturday 12 August
Saturday 26 August
Friday 8 September
Friday 22 September
ABOUT THE MAKER
My abstract artworks are continually experimental as I embrace new ways of combining modern technology and digital art with traditional printing, hand painting and brushwork to build surface and texture onto fabrics and papers. The prepared surfaces are broken down into fragments that are ‘collaged’ together in layers, embellishing areas with hand stitch, to form an abstract composition. The final stage involves manoeuvring the constructed work through my sewing machine, consolidating the piece using a minute running stitch over the entire surface.
I work intuitively, a response to life events and personal experiences through colour, texture and form, finding inspiration from, landscape, architecture and recurring memories of other cultures I have visited and experienced throughout my travels to Egypt, South East Asia and Australasia with their unique indigenous textiles and art.
Since my time as a student in the 80s and 90s I have been drawn to abstract painting, the bold expressive and symbolic use of colour and scale by artists such as John Holland, Howard Hodgkin, Gillian Ayers and Antoni Tàpies whose intuitive practices I identify with when creating my own pieces. This said I can never completely abandon my textile roots. I am not a painter and these influences, new materials, techniques and technologies will be merged with stitch, thread and fabric to help me continue my journey as a textile artist.
Maker Q & A
The making process
Some of the tools Helyne uses:
