GET TO KNOW THE ARTISTS IN OUR LOVE EXHIBITION
Discover the artists bringing love to Kiklo with our ongoing interview series. To accompany our latest exhibition about matters of the heart, we find out the places and people that inspire the artists inspiring us.
Helen Booth fell in love with mark-making after a trip to the Tate. Her large-scale abstract paintings see her intricate style and stripped-back palette ask questions of the sublime, beauty, love, life and death in response to Iceland’s dramatic landscape and encountering nature at its finest.
What does the word "love" mean to you?
It's such a strange four-letter word that stands for so much. It's almost as if the word is too small.
Love is a sense of wellbeing, being myself with the people I love and being in the landscape that inspires me.
It's abstract, unfathomable – but I feel it in the pit of my stomach.
What are three words to describe yourself?
Hopeful, spiritual, passionate.
Which exhibition/artist influenced your outlook on the arts?
In 2008, I visited Tate Modern for Cy Twombly’s exhibition, ‘Cycles and Seasons’. It was a significant experience for me. The exhibition showcased his best works, images I had only previously seen in books or in isolation at different galleries. Twombly's unique mark-making, evident from his early paintings, taught me a valuable lesson – that it is OK to be obsessed with a way of mark-making. And that such a simple mark could hold such power and complexity.
Where are you the most inspired?
In Iceland. Visiting the country about four years ago changed how I make my own work. The air there is so pure and thin – I felt closer to my spiritual self and at one with nature. I love the cold weather; my mind empties and distills my ideas into simple lines and dots.
What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?
I'm 56 years old and still painting!
What's the biggest learning experience you've had?
That life is fragile, and love is transient.
What are you currently working on?
I'm making three paintings as a commission for a house in New York. The waterfall paintings are on a smaller scale than I would normally choose, but it's been really interesting trying to capture the emotional response to the subject matter on a smaller scale. I'm also starting a new body of work that will be ready in the autumn.
Do you have a favourite artist?
This is a tricky question because it changes all the time. At the moment, I'm looking at Ellen Gallagher, Pat Steir, Park Seo-Bo, Lee Ufan and other abstract painters from the Dansaekhwa movement in Korea.
What are you most grateful for this year?
Time.
What is your idea of a perfect day?
Walking in one-metre-deep snow at -20 degrees with my sketchbook and inks. It doesn't get better than that!
