HelenA Pritchard @ TJ Boulting Gallery

Encounters is a show by South African artist HelenA Pritchard.  Her work expands beyond the realms of painting into the sculptural, the object and most recently beyond that into the extra dimension of light. The common thread between them all being her utilisation of form, colour and material.
Crossovers and layering are central to her new explorations, combining the traditional materials of painting and sculpture with everyday objects like netting, wire, mesh, silk, plants, plastic and packaging. Once assembled, the works also respond to each other in the space in which they are intended. The often ephemeral and unfixed nature of the work is due to this context of installation, a response to something, someone, or a place. Often her experimental use of materials, such as curtains, lampshades or perfume bottles, brings a sense of domestic to the gallery space. There is also a sense of narrative behind each material, of its past and journey. This process means each work is not confined to a certain period of production, the artist utilises a continuous reconfiguring of earlier works into new inventions, made from found and discarded materials collected in her studio, to be considered over time, which often adds up to years.