HELEN SAMUELS

“I am a painter and illustrator living in St Leonards. I graduated from Kingston University with a degree in Fine Art Painting and Art History and have participated in group shows, open studios, solo exhibitions and a Pure Arts artist’s residency. My work has been included in the Towner Gallery’s East Sussex Open exhibition and in the New English Art Club show at the Mall Galleries, London. This year my work was long-listed for Jackson’s Art Prize.

In my development as a painter I have focused increasingly on alternatives to portraiture. I am interested in the idea of the difference between portraying a human and a human-like artefact and how we negotiate the world through inanimate and animate objects.

My skateboard artwork is made out of my ever-growing collection of severed heads.”