Helis Podnek

Medium: Pencil

“My goal is to inspire those who see my work to look more carefully at the world around us, find beauty and acknowledge parts that we tend to turn a blind eye to. My artwork is compromised of critical views on social, political, and cultural issues. I also incorporate simple joys and light in everyday life. While I portray real plants and animals they represent actual events, public and/or social figures. I use my art as a medium of storytelling through traditional materials as graphite and pastel pencils on cotton paper”

Helis is originally from Estonia and grew up in a small village called Veskitaguse which stands in the midst of the thick forests and soft meadows. She had the opportunity to travel around the world and learn a lot about different cultures, cities and meet the most wonderful people, here as well as on the other side of the ocean. She has seen and learned a lot about the life and the mind of the big cities, however, the bond that humans share with nature is what she considers to be the core of her works. Having grown in the countryside, she greatly value the concepts of freedom, sincere caring, purity and the unbending will.

“As far as I can remember, I have always been drawing something. I draw everything I’m living through or wanted to experience, I draw what I dream about or what I’m so desperately missing. White surface and plain lines have an extraordinary power to enable the impossible into existence, and take the unconscious mind on a journey to the most mystical places, where no man has ever been before, and where the time does not matter. The white surface is like an infinite freedom, in which the mind calms by expressing all the dreams, joys and sadness in a form of simple lines.”

“This is the art that supports me and grants me the ultimate power to live on. This is the art I always give a piece from my heart.”

• 2005 Major in Product Design. Estonia Academy of Arts, Tallinn
• 2005 Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation. Visual Art internship program. East Hampton, NY, USA
• 2010 NOMA Nordic Multimedia Academy. Multimedia designer. Kolding, Denmark

For more information or to contact this artist for a commission, please contact [email protected].