Helena Buckinx (°1970, in Schoten near Antwerp) makes her first painting at the age of 16 during a summer holiday. With some old gouache paint and brushes, which belonged to her mother, she makes this painting on canvas. From then onwards she paints during every school holiday. It’s like an alternative diary to her with images and colours instead of words. She draws what she lives and what she dreams of…
After two years she gets a set of oil colours from her father. This is the real start. Genuine, vivid colours that are there to last on the canvas unlike the gouache that fades away after a couple of years.
Through the use of oil colours, Helena’s love for true colours is even more characterized in her artwork.
Her paintings show a set of naïve-painted figures in an almost surreal world. A world where the sky is too blue and the grass too green to be true. It’s her dream world. The change of gouache to oil does not influence the main subjects. Her paintings are still like a diary to her. One might recognize her in the main character of her paintings. However these are not to be considered as a set of self portraits, but as portrait of her feelings. In her native language, Dutch, she refers to it as ‘gevoelsportretten’ as opposed to ‘zelfportretten’.
Next to the figurative paintings, Helena also goes abstract from time to time. Although she considers this work much less personal than her figurative work, she also enjoys to work with colours only. Colours rule!
“When I paint, I do not need to see the image in front of me. It is all in my head and in my heart. What I do need while I paint, is to be in the right mood. And good mood equals good music!
My taste in music is quite eclectic. I’ve been a Johnny Cash, Beatles and ABBA fan for as long as I can remember. And either they or Wings, Tindersticks, Boudewijn de Groot, Liesbeth List, Peter Gabriel, Simon and Garfunkel, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Denny Laine, Leonard Cohen, Franz Ferdinand, … and Mozart … are my companions through my work.
Sometimes a certain song can inspire me for a new painting. Like the beautiful Dutch song, ‘Pastorale’ by Liesbeth List and Ramses Shaffy, which talks about the impossible love of a woman for the mighty sun.”
Also since the age of 16, she had the ambition to write a novel. ‘Reizigers op doorreis’ is her debut and was awarded the 2021 ‘Indie Awards Public Prize’. She’s currently working on the English translation.
Photo copyright by Frank Toussaint.
OTHER AUTHORS
Alia Papageorgiou
Alia Papageorgiou is the Artistic director of the Writers Festival of Belgium, she is the President of the Press Club Brussels Europe.
Lisa Martin
Lisa Martin is a freelance journalist based in Copenhagen. For the past three years, she was a Southeast Asia correspondent with Agence France-Presse in Bangkok.
Tony Connelly
Tony Connelly (born 21 December 1964, in County Antrim) is an Irish journalist and author. He is the Europe Editor for RTÉ News.
Irina Papancheva
Irina has worked as a journalist, editor, translator, deputy mayor of Sofia and an advocate for Bulgarian and European NGOs.
John Foster
John Foster is a historian of European politics. He was educated in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Jacqueline Chio Lauri
Jacqueline Chio Lauri’s first book is the highly acclaimed THE NEW FILIPINO KITCHEN: Stories and Recipes from around the Globe.
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