Helen Dean

My drawings seek to depict the detail, structure and tone of natural form, particularly folds and creases, fur and texture. Drawing animals started after a trip to Morocco and some close encounters with camels, so majestic and proud, with their beautiful eyes and snooty faces! And it has gone on from there, with a few pet commissions now in the pipeline, and anything new is a welcome challenge. When teaching online during covid we art teachers set ourselves the same tasks we were setting the pupils, and one of them was collage, and that’s how this type of work all began! Collage allows me to explore found/accidental colour and pattern, and making marks with collage gives breadth and ambiguity, which may not be achieved with paint alone. It also gives a refreshing richness to my work, which keeps me going back for more. After a trip to Nepal, I was inspired to produce a number of evocative collages and drawings depicting the locality and its inhabitants. My recent Kama Sutra collages stem from a colleague tempting me to include a bit of mischief in my work. I have tried to achieve an element of humour in these collages, combined with the beautiful decorative and colourful elements of Indian Miniatures.

Alongside maintaining my own practice I have lived and taught art in secondary schools in Dorset for the past thirty years.