Portraying someone very close to me is difficult because it is difficult to abstract oneself and take distance. In the case of Hélène it has been even more complicated because for many years, she is the person with whom I share my life, that is to say, everything.
I portray her in her studio, a luminous space where she spends hours and hours working and also studying, because one of the qualities of Hélène is her thirst for knowledge, be it art, history, mythology, philosophy, physics, astronomy or the botanical sciences.
While she is moving easels and frames to make room, I think about how her painting has evolved since I met her in Seville in the early 90s. She has been perfecting her line, the treatment of color, without ever ceasing to look for resources and solutions. And the result is a realistic style, perfectionist but fresh, with a remarkable technical mastery, but away from any fashion trend, and with a special concern for the composition, surely the result of her background as a graphic designer.
Born in Shawinigan (Quebec), Hélène Gélinas studied graphic design in California and Australia, painting in Seville with Jesús Alcántara, and pictorial restoration in Barcelona. This combination of different disciplines and geographical locations is reflected in her work.
She has exhibited her paintings in Montreal, Seville, Barcelona, Estartit, Sabadell, Anglet (France) and Sant Cugat.