Artist Statement & CV

Charly Helyar’s work focuses on the human and themes of love and violence. Colour relationships and composition are explored through figurative and abstract drawing and painting. 

 The rigor of drawing acts as a backbone for Helyar’s work, underpinning and informing her practice. Drawing can be a form of exploration without a known destination, a technical exercise, or can result in a piece which is a finished work in its own right. For her, drawing and its relationship to painting is a constant source of interest and inspiration. During a recent residency in Senegal she created a wall and ceiling drawing in wax crayon, measuring approximately 4.5x5m, working on an irregular and damp surface, depicting life in St Louis, Senegal.

The paintings are created from small drawings done from life – a homeless person asleep on a grating in the freezing streets of Toronto; a street dweller wearing only a T-shirt and skirt on a -7 day, boys chatting outside the Mosque after prayers. These are the reworked in the studio to form the basis for a painting.

The recent painting series Reasons to be Cheerful explores aging, sexuality, infertility, war and violence. The large paintings use bright candy colours to tackle difficult subjects and combine drawn elements with a more painterly approach. The composition is dynamic and the paintings boil with life. Shambles was painted in response to homophobia in Senegal after her residency there, a large and complex painting in oils brimming with action.

Her Lament series employs drawing to investigate connection between humans using wax crayon. These enormous drawings tower like Renaissance altarpieces, with small marks and larger gestural ones forming a type of dance across the paper. She has developed this theme further in her paintings made at the Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland. In contrast the tiny Days of Greatness etching series are very small hardground etchings on copper, which demand great attention and careful handling. These works form part of an enquiry into scale and how it can influence a work, and the distance it can create or the intimacy it may bring. 

A meticulous approach to materials informs the work; she makes her own gesso and often her own paint; surfaces and grounds are selected on the basis on what they may bring to work and how they may become ‘loaded’ and add meaning. She enjoys the challenge of working on differing scales, and with diverse materials: painting on hessian, using enamel paint or distemper, drawing on a wall, making a very large drawing on paper, or a tiny etching on copper. 

Curriculum Vitae: Charly Helyar

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