Louvre, 2023

Helen Uter  

Helen Uter is an established Franco-American painter born in 1955 who lives and works in Donnery, near Orléans, France. Heavily influenced by Edward Hopper, she creates works that explore everyday life in our current, highly technological society, along with its relationship to the natural world. Working within narrative figuration, Helen Uter ultimately proposes visual metaphors that reveal profound truths about fiction and reality. After her artistic studies, where she shows predispositions for drawing, Helen enters a career dedicated to images: illustrator, art director and eventually art and history of art teacher. Alongside her employment she carries out her own research when finding the time to do so. Around thirty years old, the knack was given to her by Edward Hopper ’s artwork.

« It occurred to me that you could express powerful feelings with a very simple way to paint, without making a great fuss »

Helen Uter paints, sculpts and has exhibitions since 1995. Fed by artist’s artwork such as Caillebotte, Hopper, Vélikovic, Freud, Bacon, or from the Narrative Figuration like Monory, she took the advice:

« Don’t learn how to paint! Just do it !».

The originality of her work stands probably by her American roots, affecting some of the subjects of her work, as well as the way of painting them. She finds inspiration by thinking over the relationship between nature and our technical civilization. Helen Uter’s figurative pictures combine natural patterns interacting with her own inventions. Those imaginary representations are like metaphors that express invisible realities. Helen Uter likes to confront fiction with the real world, nature, and artefacts.

« I consider my images have reached their goal when they blur interpretations and stir up trouble in the watcher’s mind ».

This approach is similar to that of the Narrative figuration. She doesn’t seek to paint « beautiful » images, but ones that make sense.

«I paint to tell thrills, feelings, moods, stories that go beyond me. My brushes guide my hand, they teach me something about myself, and about the world too. It’s a demanding task, an alternate universe, invading and transcendent. »

When she’s asked to enlighten her artworks, she gladly cites Francis Bacon:

If you can talk about it, why paint it?