An Interview with Helen Ballardie

TSG "When you trained at Canterbury it had a fantastic reputation as an art school. What was your favoured discipline whilst you were there?"
HB. "Yes, I was lucky to her there then. I was always a painter and I did lots of drawing. We definitely had an ethos of work hard / play hard. It was a good atmosphere in which to be bold and ambitious."

TSG "Have you been a full time practising artist since then or have you worked in other creative fields? If so, have they had an influence on your practice today?"
HB "In my mind I've always been a full time practising artist but in reality I needed to earn some money outside of that to pay for my rent and studio. I worked as a specialist decorator; marbling. woodgraining, gilding, paint effects etc, which took me to palaces, grand houses, historical buildings in both London and various cities in Europe. I then worked as a scenic artist mostly painting backdrops of high profile music events, The Who, Elton John, Robbie Williams, Sting, Duran Duran, Opera, Disney, Party in the Park, Stella McCartney and various other projects.
I liked the glamour of it and l loved the back 'stageness' of it. Backstage is so exciting. I've always been interested in theatres, stage curtains, backdrops.
I learnt a lot of techniques. The two disciplines are very different. One requires an exacting detailed finish and the other big bold strokes. I also learnt how to associate painting with a business practice, something that artists find difficult.

TSG " Your work has evolved over the last few years from figurative to more landscape and botanical focused paintings. What has inspired you to make that change?'
HB " My work changed when I bought a house with some land and a garden in Northern France.
Before, I had painted figures and concepts. Complex ideas. But with this garden I stopped painting people, and I stopped painting ideas. I stripped everything back and essentially let this powerful, beautiful place take the lead. The resonance of light on and through the trees and plants makes it very powerful, which feels enormous and stilling. Even when the light is a flat white paste.
I grew up in Devon, and feel a really strong affinity with the countryside. I moved to London in the 90's because people were travelling long distances to my Studio in Somerset and getting annoyed by ruining their shoes in the mud, So I thought I should move to London. But it was a battle for me. I found it difficult to paint at first, which is why I took the jobs.
When I came here to this house in Normandy I had a strong feeling that this was my home. I think the paintings I make are of gratitude. I find it overwhelmingly beautiful. I'm so grateful to be here. I just feel compelled to paint the garden like it's fundamentally important.

TSG " Are all of your paintings created in France and are they all of your garden and the local landscape?"
HB " All of my paintings now are of the garden. I made one painting that is of an oak tree in a neighbouring field but otherwise it's all in my garden. I haven't yet felt any need to change that."

TSG "When we look at your paintings, they continue to yield detail and emotion over time. They're the type of paintings that the viewer could never tire of as they continue to reveal details of structure, subject, composition and light. Is that an intentional quality of your work?"
HB " That's very nice that you say that. I think when I paint I'm not really thinking of anything other than finding the place where it reveals itself. I think that I think visually by flattening a scene in my mind, making it map like and I have been doing that to landscapes, making them map like, plotting the paintings components. I've recently been experimenting with putting skies in which change the dimension. Some are flat and with depth at the same time. And I've been experimenting with marking the canvas in a way that is as close to natural marks as possible. Trying to make nature on the canvas somehow. My paintings are often a combination of chance paint marks and stains combined with considered colour mixing and placement, echoing the state of my being. My observations of the garden are that it is a series of colour blobs and light blobs of subtle and stark variations. My process is to figure out how to paint something seemingly impossible while not dictating it.
My paintings tend to straddle filtration and abstraction, more successful paintings tend to be the result of intuitive, necessary, frustrated and physical response with paint. Loose and tight painting, and whatever medium feels appropriate. I might also put part of the garden physically into the paintings.

TSG "What do you hope that the viewer will appreciate, notice and take from your work?"
HB " I think essentially the most important thing to me is that there is some kind of truth."

TSG "What are your current influences, referencing an artistic movement / artist or genre?"
HB "I feel drawn to Fra Angelico, Poussin, de Kooning, Klimt landscapes, Van Gogh, Helen Frankenthaler, Persian garden paintings, Victorian collage, Japanese Ukiyo e prints, Susan te Kahurangi King, Mark Bradford, David Hockney, a San Fransisco artist called Daniel Green, Aubusson tapestries, early Paula Rego cartoons, large Monet Water Lilies."

TSG " Which province of France do you live in?"
HB. " Orne, Lower Normandy."

TSG " How would you describe your studio and how do you work? Do you paint mainly in the studio or outdoors and do you make many sketches before applying paint to canvas or do you prefer to work straight from the subject to canvas?"
HB. 'I work in four different places, a barn and the garden where I throw paint around. My sparse living room / studio because it has the best light. An upstairs room because it is the most private. Ideally I'd have a dedicated space that has good light, warmth and privacy. I'm working on it. I also paint outside small plein air paintings to really look at colour and light. They really help me to paint the large paintings.
I usually have an idea of what I want to paint big and I go straight in. Sometimes in the middle I paint a small version to try to work something out, but there are other paintings I have made based on pain air paintings or drawings I have made. All three of the small paintings in The Battersea show are associated with the larger painting show in April.