ARTIST BIO

Hélène Planquelle is a self-taught visual artist whose wide range of knowledge and interests takes root in her humanity studies. Passionate of classical literature and philosophy at first, she went on to study intercultural communication and  opened her mind to always more contemporary topics in the realms of social and natural sciences. Putting high value in cross-disciplinarity, Hélène Planquelle thrives on feeding her mind novel material in order to reach a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the world we live in. To her, determination is the key to knowledge and self-improvement; and it is  that spirit that led  her to develop her practice entirely as  a self-taught artist. Constantly seeking to improve her technical skills, she believes technique is to art what  vocabulary is to language: the more words you have, the more complex and precise your expression is.

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In the same spirit,  she looks up to other artists who, before her, were able to combine classical training and innovative ideas,  from Salvador Dali - whom she admires for both his technical mastery and lavish imagination - to Jenny Saville - for her uncompromising  look on the human body -  and Ernest Pignon Ernest - who  weds very contemporary topics and Caravaggio  esthetic.

Fierce advocate of figuration, her work draws on  man's ancestral need for storytelling. As art is not so much about finding answers than raising questions, Hélène Planquelle's work deliberately looks for ambiguity, uncertainty and  multiple meaning. With truth and authenticity among  her core values, Hélène Planquelle aims at nothing less than for her work to spark genuine emotions in her viewers, which are often the start of open-hearted conversations about existential issues.

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