Painting her own way
Artist Helen Oliver brings ‘The Open Road’ to East Village gallery
BY BOB KRASNER
“My mother was a
painter,” the artist
Helen Oliver begins.
“We grew up surrounded
by her paintings.”
The “we” refers to she and
her brother Edgar, with whom
she shared a rather unusual
childhood. Mr. Oliver, a playwright
and performer, has
documented in his work their
upbringing in an isolated old
house in Savannah, Georgia
with a mother who we will
refer to charitably as, well, eccentric.
Their father passed
away when they were very
young, leaving the siblings under
the guidance of a woman
who shunned neighbors and
relatives, but encouraged them
to be proud of who they were.
In the Howl! Gallery where
she currently has a solo show,
Ms. Oliver is sitting near one
of her very fi rst paintings, a
portrait of her mother made
in 1977. Oliver recounts
how her love of art led her to
study art history, but not to
painting initially.
Although their mother encouraged
both of them to
sketch on almost daily drives
through Georgia, it wasn’t until
she was required to take a
technique class while studying
at a college in Paris that she
discovered that she “adored
painting.” She adored that city
as well, but joined her brother
in NYC when she “was driven
out of Paris by the rats!”
The pair ended up living in a
rooming house in the East Village
with a number of elderly
neighbors who slowly left the
building, one way or another.
The landlord didn’t bother to
rent the vacant rooms, leaving
the duo as the only tenants.
Oliver snatched the opportunity
to use the available
space for her studio and many
of the paintings in the current
show were created there.
She “managed to scrape by”
while designing stage sets for
her brother’s productions at
the Pyramid and La Mama
and producing oil paintings
of some of the more prominent
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
members of the Downtown
scene, including Penny
Arcade, Lenny Kaye and
Kembra Pfahler.
Her style seems to have been
in place since the beginning, a
vision that “vacillates between
the hallucinatory, bordering
on Surrealism, and a raw
pragmatic quality that makes
them appear utterly truthful,”
according to Art in America’s
David Ebony.
Mr. Oliver attempts to explain
the origins on his sister’s
art, explaining that, in their
youth “we didn’t live in a specifi
c time period, we lived in
(Above) Helen Oliver at the Howl! Gallery, site of her solo
show. (Left) Helen with brother Edgar.
a world of the three of us. We
didn’t have many friends. The
one thing that mother was determined
to teach us was to
take pride in the solitude of being
what we ourselves were and
not be like anyone else.”
Ms. Oliver, having married
and moved to Tarquinia,
Italy with her husband (now
deceased), found herself in
a beautiful house (which she
christened the Lunar Landing)
surrounded with olive trees but
with fewer subjects who were
willing to sit for her, as she
painted from live models.
“It was sometimes hard to
fi nd someone to sit,” she said,
“so I began doing landscapes.”
Perhaps unconsciously repeating
the pattern learned
from her youth, she would go
for a drive on empty country
roads, pull over and sketch what
PHOTOS BY BOB KRASNER
would later become a painting.
For the past 17 years she has
created sculpture as well, working
with clay that is sometimes
cast in bronze.
It’s all part of the same journey
for her, which led to gallery
director Jane Friedman to title
the show, “The Open Road”.
“All the people,” Oliver
muses, gesturing to the canvases
around her, “are like
places on the road.”
As for her technique and vision,
Oliver can’t really explain
her style.
“It’s like handwriting,” she
says. “I have no control over it.
It’s just the way that I do it.”
Info about the show is available
at howlarts.org/event/
helen-oliver-the-open-road.
Edgar will be performing a live
play at Howl!, with sets by
Helen, on Feb. 5.
16 January 27, 2022 Schneps Media
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