HelenA Pritchard was born in South Africa and came to London to study, firstly for a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of East London and then for an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, where she was the recipient of the Stanley Spencer Scholarship. Pritchard’s varied artistic practice encompasses painting, sculpture and installation, centred around a concern with the ecological and the elevation through her work of discarded detritus and found materials. This is done via a formal language that often refers to her background as a painter. These processes connecting material and the organic relate back to the ideas of Hildergard von Bingen, the 12th century abbess, composer, theologian and medicinal herbalist, and her belief in the divine force of nature or ‘Viriditas’, the translation from Latin meaning green and truth. Helen lives and works between London and Shropshire, the duality between city and countryside offering a rich and broad landscape of materials and context. ...
