HELEN STEELE

Reflections

HELEN STEELE Reflections

March 3rd – April 15th, 2023

Bryant Street Gallery has the privilege to announce Reflections, a posthumous show featuring the works of Helen Steele. The gallery worked in collaboration with the Steele estate to curate Steele’s vision for this exhibition. The selections include a mix of newer paintings that have not previously been shown alongside some deeply personal sculptures from Steele’s private collection. Bryant Street Gallery invites the public to join us in honoring Steele and her work at the opening reception on Saturday, March 18th, from 3-5 p.m.

Helen Steele was born in 1965 in Immenstadt, Germany, into a family brimming with artists. In her youth she could be found exploring nature, always with a sketchbook at hand. Steele earned her master’s degree in 1986 from Ludwig’s Maximilian University in Munich. The following year she moved to California, first briefly to Los Angeles, before settling in San Rafael, where she lived and worked until her passing in 2022. She exhibited across the United States, including in California, Colorado, Georgia, and Florida. Over the course of a career that spanned five decades, Steele painted in a middle ground between figurative and abstraction, with her most recent work focusing on various figures shrouded as if by fog. Her process was intuitive; rather than pre-planning a composition, she would begin with a figure and feel out the rest of the painting from there.

Steele’s body of work depicts silhouettes–sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or groups–wandering through open, abstract spaces. The spaces act as playgrounds for deep, meditative explorations of themes like memory and emotions. The repeated layering and removal of paint builds up the atmosphere to a consistency reminiscent of the soothing ambience of soft static noise. The ghostly subjects of the paintings are adrift in a sea of thoughts and memories flashing by. Complex emotions bubble beneath the surface. Steele’s figures pass through fields of melancholy, introspection, nostalgia, anxiety, loneliness, and awe; though her palettes and deliberate mark making give suggestions, the true natures of the environments are ultimately defined by the viewer.

Reflections will be on view at 532 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 from March 3rd to April 15th, 2023. For more images and information please visit the website at www.bryantstreet.com or email us at bryantst@mac.com

Helen Steele was born in a small town in the southern mountainous region of Germany. She spent her youth exploring nature with a sketchbook on hand. In high school, she participated in an exchange program in France, which opened her eyes to the wider world. Helen studied art education at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. She received her master’s degree in 1986. She immigrated to America in 1987, first moving to Los Angeles before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she raised her children and started her art career.

She was trained in artistic techniques, which include painting, printmaking, encaustic, ceramics, and fiber arts. Her work is an exploration into the human soul, a witnessing of the human spirit. Her approach was intuitive, suggestive rather than detailing.

Helen was the recipient of multiple awards and grants, including the Denis Diderot A-i-R art residency grant at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France, an art residency at Green Olive Arts in Tetouan Morocco, and the Wendy Gruber Grant in Marin, CA. Also, her work has been published in American Art Collector Magazine and was featured on Marin Magazine’s front cover. Her work is shown by several galleries in the United States and abroad and can be found in many private collections.

Deep breaths, and mist quiet moment