Helen Shulman

Your Journey Will Be Satisfying in Unexpected Ways, 48×36,-Mixed-Media

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Kobalt Gallery in Helen Shulman

Save As, 24×32, Oil on Panel

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Kobalt Gallery in Helen Shulman

Palimpsest, 26×42, Oil on Panel

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Kobalt Gallery in Helen Shulman

Helen Shulman

Shulman’s paintings begin with a representational image, either from a figure drawing she’s done in a life drawing session or a landscape related to sketches made outside or a quick rendering of a Hudson River School artist’s image. This gives her a chance to “build a relationship” with the blank panel. It is where the composition, light and story first begin to take form. Although the resulting picture may bear little resemblance to the starting point, it, nonetheless, influences her thinking and artistic activity.

As a former psychotherapist, Helen is particularly interested in internal landscapes where the logic is different from external, physical logic. In imagination or dreams, multiple, disparate events and settings may live side by side as the dream ego jumps abruptly from one to another following sequences that could not occur in waking life.

“I am an inveterate daydreamer. I cannot keep my mind focused on the outside world for prolonged periods. When I paint, I am constantly noodling around in my head—probably the primary reason that I work abstractly. When I was a practicing therapist I repeatedly saw people discover new spaces in their psyches. I saw them come across new resources, new ideas, new problem solving techniques. I saw them gaining energy. I saw them relax into themselves.”

Although any such process, whether in a consulting room or in the studio, can be bumpy and uncomfortable, it can when followed far enough, lead to a place of refreshment. “I hope that people who respond to my work will discover this place. I hope they will find themselves taking a deep breath, letting down their shoulders and dropping their guard.”