Hélène Béland

Home: Pierreville, Québec
Title: Woodland Fairy
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 47 x 55 cm
Website: helenebeland.ca

Artist Statement

In a small village of Quebec, I crossed Pamélie’s clear blue eyes. Accustomed as I was to see made up young women, Pamelie’s “natural” complexion charmed me as well. I asked her to pose in order to capture the true “well being” that emanated from her, simply and frankly, without any artifice. I painted her as a «woodland fairy» to accentuate this aspect of her.

Biography

My artistic development is summarized as a search for excellence in the application of the plastic language to create works of art which communicate with refinement and beauty in the lineage of the classical Fine Arts. After my collegial studies in plastic arts, I attended a private fine art school in Los Angeles, California, USA, where the famous ” Gluck’s Method” is used, to fully acquire the skill of drawing, color, the secrets of the application of oil painting, the glazing technique and all pertinent knowledge. Following the obtaining of my instructor’s diploma in this method, I taught proudly with it for 28 years. Meanwhile, I made a career in gallery and pursued my studies in art history, from antiquity to our days. I frequently visited the largest museums of the world and I kept to reproduce on site masterworks to increase my knowledge, either in charcoal or paint. For the last five years, on a full-time basis, I have been pursuing my artistic quest of beauty and its clear, powerful communication (I mean without the necessity of a verbal explanation ) whatever the subject represented. The painting I have submitted was created with this viewpoint. I made plastic decisions to combine the greatest possible illusion of reality I could obtain, with my idealization of this reality.