Helene Fletcher/ Music

“I started painting late in life (I am 78 years old) in my fifties. I always wanted to paint, after spending some of my late teens days at the Paris Modern Art museum instead of going to my university classes. I suppose I am self taught although I did an art fundation years in the late 80s and one HND year in the 2010's. Once i got a studio space , I could experiment with pigments and other mediums, playing with colours and shapes. I am very influenced by the modernists and abstract expressionists. I have shown my work a lot in some exhibitions I organised myself and with other artists. I always have thrived on artistic community and support.

I used to start with small drawings , sketches and photos.But the last few years, i have been wanting to experience the raw exciting feeling of my impulses and painting with the whole of my body. Abstract Painting as movement in space, time and channel for feelings/sensations. Painting as making the invisible visible and Jazz has been my portal to that dimension of being in the world. Some of jazz musicians that have inspired me are John Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, Trevor Watts, John TChicai, Archi Shepp to name a few.

I use all kind of media, materials, tools to get where this energy takes me without judgement. When I reach a pause, i look to see what has happened and carry on till I feel the picture is finished. Kind of. A painting is never finished.

In my experience, painting is not transcendence but immanence. To let happen what needs to happen. The result is not always beautiful, but I feel it is as authentic as it can be.”