Helene has always drawn, looking at things, people and landscapes, observing them. Drawing rather than taking notes. She continued almost without interruption, since « the high school years» a practice of the nude which she did not even question. In 2018, when her life changed, Hélène begins with drawings based on a living model – or a photograph. But this time with the will to question this practice. To question her very personal way of seeing and looking at the world.

hélène fromen, ink and marker on paper, 50 x 65 cm

Under the trait of Helen the figures are bound to their destiny. Some precise but never closed life lines around the bodies, inside the faces, and always in the moment. Without cover, without sugarcoating, without remorse. Like on a stage. The subjects dance in an environment only suggested by the movements. Adventures and characters rarely cross paths. No sadness, no anguish : We are happily lost on Helen’s line.

Minimal, but not minimalist, the line designates the contact between singular lives and the rest of the world. When the color explodes, it becomes energy, first, primary, unthinkable. Each work is a snapshot that marks the space with a lasting and discreet movement and sound. Two qualities that we desperately need today.

Landscapes torn under the sun, hélène fromen

An adventure that starts in the spring of 2020, in the stupor of a world that stopped, with nothing but papers to tear up to recompose them differently, without words, seen enough, read, heard. Then begins an exploration of matter and, in the closed-door of Helen’s room, abstract landscapes emerge: the black continent, to the north the glaciers, the red continent, to the south the countryside in bloom... Then summer comes, finally, and the promise of the landscapes of Aubrac, cows, granite, meadows as far as the eye can see, so many landscapes to tear.

Automn 2020 — la manufacture parisienne, Montmartre, Paris

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Hélène Fromen lives and works in Paris.Born in 1971, she worked for a long time in digital and media. She has been working in collective nude drawing workshops since 1991 : charcoal, ink, acrylic, markers and ultiplies the interventions in portraits on the spot (Kinnernet, Who’s Next). She regularly resides at 59 Rivoli.