Works
Biography

As a gallery fortunate enough to be hosting a collection of work by Helen Simmonds, there is a certain anticipatory warmth in the commonly heard remark  I don’t usually like still lifes, but…  It may presage  a short silent moment of chin-stroking circumspection – a dawning recognition that these predominantly small, modest paintings have an evocative or emotive air about them that is not readily describable.  Slow in creation, they are invested with deliberation and long hours of looking, their contemplation engendering a similar, rewarding sense of lasting calm. Slowing down to look is a natural reaction.

The works mainly feature selections from the artist’s collection of small ceramics, bottles and enamelled vessels.  The jug and ladle are recognisably Victorian;  other preferred objects are the oriental porcelain cups and vases, their surfaces decorated with musicians, dancers and temple visitors. These various  objects are, it seems clear, beloved,  imbued with significance as heirlooms or gifts, as well as their whispered depictions of other worlds.   At times the pottery and enamel shimmer among the shadows with their soft china-blue and light orange detailing. Other plates and bowls slice and upset the background  hush with a humming crescent or blazing splash of irridescent saffron glaze.

Simmonds’ studio is a bright attic overlooking a townscape criss-cross of rooftops.  The Marlborough Downs are visible in the distance and the chatter of workers on a break audible outside the window.  Within this capsular space the ceramics and flowers are slowly choreographed into her familiar compositions. Behind the closed studio door she comes to terms with the outside world’s restlessness  and bustle, making  peace with it through the hard-won discipline and freedom of painting.  She is the epitome of Girogio Morandi’s description (of himself) as ‘ essentially a painter of the kind of still life composition that communicates a sense of tranquility and privacy, moods which I have always valued above all else.’ 

Despite its long intertwining with the history of art and its currents of wealth, religion, patronage and power, still life is perhaps overly-familiar as a genre in our noisy world and is too often served cold and hyper-real.  We have evolved in terms of medium, subject matter, concept.  It is the antithesis of our voracious, image-hungry zeitgeist.  Why contemplate and get to know the depiction of simple objects within an arms-length of space on a table, when one can instead binge on a knowing and graphic digital firmament.

It is this that makes an artist like Helen Simmonds a revolutionary.  We are looking at a quest for, if not an exercise in, equanimity and her work leads us, rapt, into silence.  Simmonds is capable of  re-enchanting the everyday ordinary utensil, revivifying and suspending for us the short precious life-span of a beautiful flowering plant.  To look at this work is to be guided from a viral, hurried world to a simple non-knee-jerk, non-reductive essence, aptly summed up  by writer Patrick McGuinness.  Less is not always more. Sometimes it is everything.

Exhibitions
CV

Education
1980-82           Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, Foundation Studies
1982-85           Degree (Hons) Fine Art, Sculpture, Bath Academy of Art

Solo Exhibitions


2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 & 2024  Solo show at Beaux Arts Bath, Bath UK
2012                         New Paintings, Alexander Gallery, Bristol
2009-2013               Jonathan Cooper, Park Walk Gallery, London
2008                        ‘Mise-En-Scenes’ Morgan-Boyce Gallery, Marlborough

 

Selected Exhibitions

2023

'Winter Exhibition' Beaux Arts Bath

AAF Spring, Battersea, Stand C3, Beaux Arts Bath
London Art Fair Islington, Stand G20, Beaux Arts Bath

2022

AAF Spring, Battersea, Stand C3, Beaux Arts Bath
London Art Fair Islington, Stand G20, Beaux Arts Bath

2021

‘The Summer Show’, Beaux Arts Bath

AAF Spring, Battersea, Stand C3, Beaux Arts Bath

London Art Fair Islington, Stand G20, Beaux Arts Bath

2019
‘The Summer Show’, Beaux Arts Bath
AAF Spring, Battersea, Stand C3, Beaux Arts Bath
London Art Fair Islington, Stand G20, Beaux Arts Bath

2018
London Art Fair, Islington London with Beaux Arts Bath

2017
‘Artists of Fame and Promise’ Summer Show- Beaux Arts Bath
‘Still’ still life exhibition- Beaux Arts Bath
London Art Fair, Islington London with Beaux Arts Bath

2016
‘Artists of Fame and Promise’ Summer Show- Beaux Arts Bath
London Art Fair, Islington London with Beaux Arts Bath
LAPADA fair, Mayfair London – Beaux Arts Bath

2015
Christmas Mixed show at Beaux Arts Bath
‘Artists of Fame and Promise’ mixed show at Beaux Arts Bath

2014
‘Secret Lives’ mixed show at Beaux Arts Bath

2013
Beaux Arts Bath, Artists of Fame & Promise, Summer Exhibition

2012
Beaux Arts Bath, Small Works for Christmas
Holburne Museum Portrait Prize
Autumn Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy
Lynn Painter Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries
Works on Paper Fair, Science Museum, London

2011
Autumn Exhibition Royal West of England Academy
Alexander Gallery, Bristol

2009-12          Jonathan Cooper Park Walk Gallery
2009/12          BADA Antiques Fair London
2009-15          The British Art Fair 20/21, Royal College of Art London
2008                Edinburgh Art Fair
2007                Oxemann Open Art Exhibition, Devizes Museum
2005/6            Wine Street Gallery, Devizes
2004                Gallery 39, Swindon
2000                Hot Bath Gallery, Bath

Awards
1985                Gains Trust Travel Scholarship
2011                Royal West of England Academy Public Choice Prize

Press
BBC Homes and Antiques
Artists and Illustrators Magazine
Elle Decoration
Matchbox
Leisure Painter
Western Daily Press
ART Magazine
JOYCE Magazine, Madrid

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