Helen Latham
University: Turps Banana Correspondence course
Graduation Year: 2016
New Blood Art Commentary
It’s the double lens of Helen Latham’s work that makes it extraordinary.
She’s not just painting children or painting as a child might. She’s doing something far more rare: she’s inhabiting the inner world of childhood from within, and then rendering it with the full consciousness, technique, and sophistication of an adult artist.
The paintings don’t just show a child’s world - they are a child’s world, felt from the inside. Embodied, luminous, tactile, real.
They don’t illustrate - they remember. But not as an adult recalling the past. As if the past itself is still living, breathing, and available through the skin.
Helen has just joined the Masters section. That feels exactly right.
Artist Statement
Figurative painting has a radical new role: it adds a layer of time, contemplation and introspection to an image, images that today are generally just consumed. What interests me is the human condition – what it feels like to be alive today. In our complex and often superficial culture, how do we relate, in a meaningful way, to one another? I often choose the human figure, the most obvious yet complicated source for inspiration, and look at the sense of belonging or alienation we all feel. Working from photographs and images from the Internet, modern-day technology is not rejected but incorporated into my working method. As a colour chemist I have studied, and am fascinated by, the physical and psychological effects colour has on our brain.
Group Exhibitions
(2024) Battersea Affordable Art Fair, Gala fine Art, London
(2024) Warchild Postcard Auction, Fitzrovia Gallery, London
(2023) Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
(2022) Royal Academy summer exhibition, Royal Academy, London
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2019) Honorable Mention Award, Circle Foundation for the Arts