Helen Sargeant West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Helen Sargeant is an artist based in the UK, her interdisciplinary, collaborative practice explores the representation of the maternal body.
Helen explores her personal and political identity as a woman, artist, and mother. She draws upon the female body as a site of memory, trauma, transformation, vulnerability, power, and decay. Art projects have included investigating maternal ambivalence, maternal labour, the politics of care, the ethics of collaborating with children, and maternal mental health.
Paintings focus on the swollen torso, engorged breasts, and vulva, to process and remember embodied experiences of pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. Sharp gestural lines, repetitive patterns, decoration, and motifs including breasts, eyes, spirals, safety pins, flowers, and grids draw the viewer into her works. Recent work includes drawing with hand- stitch onto found domestic textiles such as pillows, sheets, t-towels, serviettes, and tablecloths.
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Artwork
Projects and exhibitions
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Play & Compassion25/03/2023 — ongoing Play and Compassion is the theme of this multidisciplinary group exhibition curated by Georgie White Winter and Ruth Batham. |
Kingshill House, Dursley, Gloucestershire, UK | Details |
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An Artist And A Mother, Edited by Tara Carpenter Estranger, Kaylan Buteyn, Heidi Moller Somsen07/03/2023 — ongoing An Artist and a Mother is a book of visual artworks and essays that speak to the diverse ways artists balance creative life with the demands of mothering. It includes thirty seven essays describing the work of thirty-nine international artists and an art collective, as well as a resource guide with books, journals, magazines, organizations, and... [Read more] |
Pusbished by Demeter Press, Canada | Details |
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Procreate Project: Archive21/02/2023 — ongoing "The Lost Daughter" poster shown in the Modern Art Oxford Yard as part of the Procreate Project: Archive. |
Modern Art, Oxford | Details |
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60 Drawings + 1016/06/2022 — 11/08/2022 Sixty Drawings + Ten explores, defines, and celebrates the locality and discipline of drawing in its diverse forms. Curated by Curtis Magri and Gary James Williams. 60 artists, from a variety of different disciplines who exhibited in an exhibition in 2012 in Manchester, were invited once more to submit a drawing alongside 10 new artists invited... [Read more] |
Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery, Rawtenstall | Details |
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MAKE ART/NOT SAD25/05/2022 — 05/06/2022 Make Art / Not Sad is an on-line exhibition by Kim Hopson, Kelly Marshall, Jen McGowan, Margaux Portron and Helen Sargeant. This exhibition explores creativity, care and the maternal identity in relation to mental health and wellbeing. The artists all make work that stems from their personal experiences of being mothered and mothering. They... [Read more] |
Maternal Art - https://maternalart.com/make-art-not-sad | Details |
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Mythical Mother09/09/2021 — 30/09/2021 An online exhibition curated by Georgie White Winter in partnership with Spilt Milk Gallery. Exhibiting artists: Shweta Bist, Michelle Gallagher, Marica Michael, Nadia Nizwamudin, Helen Sargeant, Celine Sheridan, Lynsey Watson, Georgie White Winter, Malineh Zafarnezhad Today the mother is tied up in myth and mystery. If we are to understand... [Read more] |
Spilt Milk Gallery - www.spiltmilkgallery.com/exhibitions/mythical-mother | Details |
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My mummy is beautiful (after Y.O)11/06/2021 — 27/03/2021 A solo exhibition of drawings, paintings, books, animation, and textile works by Helen Sargeant. |
Linden Art Gallery, Hebden Bridge | Details |