The world that surrounds us often presents itself as something we feel separated from. The homogeneity of urban landscapes, driven by globalization, is something our brains take for granted; unnoticed as part of a mechanism to conserve energy when exposed to frequent stimuli.

Helena focuses on things we might never have noticed before. In Dissociation, she presents a compilation of her works from the last 10 years to the present. The series of paintings results from a multi-step process, where she uses mold-making techniques to capture textures from various materials found in the places she’s been. These textures, mostly from industrial materials, are reproduced with high fidelity and cast in acrylic paint, which serves as the medium for the final work. Her methodology combines complex mold-making techniques, requiring extensive technical knowledge, with intuitive, almost outsider aesthetics and methods. This makes both rational and intuitive approaches equally important. 

The translation from the original surface to the casted version serves as a way to strip the material of its evident meaning, transforming it into something that appears identical to the original but in reality is not. This creates a sensation of contradictory beliefs, allowing her to acknowledge the contextual attributes of the materials while also glimpsing something beyond words—a perceptual experience of "the thing as it is" beyond conceptual frameworks. Most recently, the extensive time Parriott has spent with such materials has given her the ability to recreate such textures with a precision indistinguishable from the “real ones”, adding another layer of  fiction within  fiction.

In a natural progression of her practice, the Glimmering and Mirage series is inspired by popular building and decoration techniques seen in the streets of New York, and Brazil, where she currently resides. This series incorporates fragments of the previous Dissociation series, combined with found pieces of broken mirrors, in an attempt to engage with perception—a game that seeks to dissolve the duality of feeling like a separate entity from the world around us. This ongoing desire for immersion in a world of textures and color has led Helena to create her Diorama pieces, which serve as prototypes for envisioning an alternate space where the textures, symbols and movement form the entirety of the environment.

Helena’s practice becomes a way to experience the world more holistically, where contradictions are embraced, and reality is not just what we see, but more. Through observation, time, layering, and color, her works take on qualities that feel both real and magical at the same time.

Helena Parriott:

Born 1987, Seattle, WA. Helena Parriott works with painting, glass, and performance. She lives and works between Goias, Brazil, and Seattle, Washington. Her works have shown nationally and internationally, including VICTORI + MO, BRIC, BFP Creative, Centotto, and UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY, Macklind Appliance, St. Louis, MO, and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. She was guest artist at the Museum of Glass, Seattle, WA, Tyler School of art, Philadelphia, PA, Wheaton Arts, New Jersey, and Zelezny Brod School of Glass in ZB, Czech Republic. In October she will be participating in the 15th International Glass Symposium (IGS); residency and exhibition in Novy Bor, Czech Republic.