Little Wing presents a new body of paintings by Helen Ballardie, developed in her studio in rural northern France.

Ballardie trained at Canterbury in the 1980s and went on to establish a successful, award-winning career as a painter in the United Kingdom. In recent years, her relocation to northern France has brought a renewed focus to her practice, grounding it in the landscape that now surrounds her daily life. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected internatiinally with a significant volume of her work residing in prestiguous private and public collections.

At the centre of this exhibition is the artist’s immediate environment: a large, loosely tended garden that exists in a constant state of change. Ballardie does not approach this landscape as a subject to be defined, but as a system to be engaged with—one shaped by growth, repetition, interruption, and seasonal drift.

The paintings are constructed through a process of accumulation. Layers of mark-making—drawn, painted, and reworked—build up surfaces that feel dense and active. Elements of plant life appear and dissolve within these fields, never fully fixed, but held in a state of flux. This instability is central: the works resist a singular reading, instead offering a shifting visual experience that unfolds over time.

Colour plays a defining role. Often grounded in varied greens, the palette is activated by moments of heightened intensity—yellows, reds, violets—that punctuate and organise the surface. These instances act as points of focus within an otherwise continuous field, guiding the eye without resolving it.

What distinguishes this body of work is its sense of resolution without closure. The paintings feel complete, yet open—each one the result of sustained attention, but never overdetermined. Ballardie allows space for instinct alongside observation, producing works that are both grounded in a specific place and expansive in their reach.

Little Wing marks a significant development in the artist’s practice, bringing together a group of paintings that are immersive, assured, and structurally complex.

Little Wing opens on Saturday May 9th at 3pm, please join us for a glass of wine to celebrate this much anticipated solo exhibtion.