Helen Lessick

An artist of ideas, Helen Lessick makes varied objects and events. An artist of situation, she explores site and community. A curious artist, she harnesses observation, movement and mechanics to rediscover wonder in our shared under-recognized forces. An artist of research, she explores sites and places, communities and histories. In sculpture, installation, public art, performance and publications, Helen leverages informational systems and processes to explore shared space.

An artist of community, Helen's palette extends beyond the studio. She collaborates with living processes of humans, animals and plants. Considering forests recovering from high intensity fires, Helen researched the subterranean collaboration between roots and fungi in the mountains of Australia. Exploring microbial wastewater systems, she found wonder in the oxygen created by offgassing effluent in the city of Los Angeles. Researching sub-Saharan agriculture, she framed soil health as public art for a vegetable kiosk in an unplanned inner-city community in Nairobi. Sweeping the studio led Helen to question unseen particulates, and the cycles of invisible activity that move beyond the studio practice and the human hand.

My works on paper include watercolors examining growth and change in clouds. When an airborne water droplet lands on a minute dust particle in freezing temperatures, it makes a duet. These chill units coalesce to form clouds and the cloud layer. Harnessing this scientific fact to the narrative of metaphor, I explore the particulate community that unites and dissolves overtime. I also make works of paper harnessing the printed word as sculpture.