Helen Chamberlain
Helen is an internationally renowned watercolor artist whose art celebrates color, light, darkness and the spirit of the heart. Inspired by the work and person of European painter Liane Collot d’Herbois, her work reflects a new sense of inner excitement and freedom, balancing traditional and experimental concepts of light and space. Her veil painting technique exhibits a refinement and energetic spirit that encourages the viewer to experience the art on many levels.
The work of Helen Chamberlain brings one to pause in a world where the pace is chaotic. The capacity of human beings to connect seems to be diminishing as we rely on technology to replace our human efforts.
In the 1990’s Helen left the world of traditional artistic expression to pursue veil painting and artistic painting therapy studies at the Emerald Foundation in Den Haag, Holland. Her painting now involves the boundaries of light and darkness based on the color philosophies of J.W. von Goethe, Rudolf Steiner and Liane Collot d’Herbois. Josine Hutchison, founder of the Emerald Foundation, has recommended Helen as a teacher of Collot’s theory of light, darkness, and color to those living and working in North America.
Helen resides in Nashville, Tennessee surrounded by an ever changing garden – the colors support her work.
About Helen’s Art
This new impulse called Veil Painting changed my life both personally and artistically. I discovered that painting under the instruction of Collot d’Herbois’ inspiration in Holland, coherency and intention from the indicators of light, color, and darkness results in the appearance of images that shine out in higher frequencies. These frequencies are received by the viewer as spiritual forces that could help bring the human being to a new or higher consciousness and always questions of “how do these paintings manifest themselves occur?”
Before studying this incredible “art” form, I had only painted in a subjective and somewhat abstract manner or style. (These galleries and others to be published in the future.)
In my world now, the worlds of imagination, intuition, and cognition (developed from knowledge of moral cognitive thinking) colors are inlivened and blended supporting on another as each veil is applied on water color stretched paper, hopefully a “coherent” painting manifests and the viewer can see, feel, and wonder, and know that it is possible to “understand sensory facts spiritually.” I hope that in my application of color, it’s not objects revealed but the true inner being of the work, which speaks of the mysteries of soul, mind, and spirit.
The world of soul is revealed in color. This painting process, veil painting, manifests when the soul of the artist is united with the soul of the color. Helen’s painting represents symbols that the viewers of her work can experience within themselves, thus suggesting more than one level of seeing. Finer inner perceptions are revealed through the choice of certain colors and color energies. This wider, awakened reality draws its strength from the realm of the universal consciousness.
Working with color is an awakening process. The alchemy of veil painting, the mysterious process of transformation, is the creation of sacred space through the meditative quality of painting out of color. Through the Collot d’Herbois method of veil painting, the consciousness and will are united by decisions made in the heart space, thus healing and transformation of soul takes place during this alchemical process.
Alchemical imagery is portrayed in these paintings. Standing upright before the canvas, in a gesture of beholding, the directed will through the heart space penetrates and lifts the artist to the feeling realm. Substances are potentized in a rhythmical process. As the substance is harmonized through this process a connection with the archetypal beings of the spiritual world creates an abyss moment when sacred expressions manifest.
Veil painting takes much patience – moving the brush slowly and gently as transparent washes of color are applied to the canvas. Three to four hundred transparent layers capture the light, giving an inner luminosity that draws the viewer into the work. The veil painting method creates a “color space” – colors come into being and there is a surprise each time as the painter never has a particular motif in mind. The color will sing through in different areas and then certain images emerge. It is always a mystery – an exciting mystery – in that the artist never knows what is going to happen!
Recommended Reading
“Catching the Light – The Entwined History of Light and Mind,” by Arthur Zajone
“Color – Its Relationship to Soul and Spirit” by Lois Schroff
“Colour,” “The Arts and Their Mission,” “Study of Man,” by Rudolf Steiner
“Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” by Wassily Kandinsky
“Know the Name …,” by Sharón Lynn Wyeth
“Light, Darkness, and Color,” by Liane Collot d’Herbois
“Light, Medicine of the Future,” by Jacob Liberman
“Physical and Spiritual Experience of Color” by Lois Schroff
“Seeking Spirit Vision,” by Dennis Klocek
“The Effects of Light on the Human Body,” by Richard J. Wurtman
“Theory of Colors” by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
We are currently working on adding several additional galleries including: Other Veil Paintings; Representational Art; Ink Drawings; and Abstracts. There is also a blog in the works. Please add yourself to our Site News List below so that you receive email notifications/newsletters as artwork or notable content is added to the site.