Helen Ward OAS – portfolio

Contact the artist

07896 993471
hward1820[at]btinternet.com

Exhibition information

Helen is predominantly a landscape painter who enjoys interpreting the patterns, shapes and colours in nature. She’s fascinated by the shapes of fields created by hedgerows, the patterns of crops growing, the silhouette of a copse of trees on the ridgeline of a hill or the drama of a lone tree in a field. Wild areas of forest or hillsides attract her attention as well as man-made landscapes of farms and gardens. She observes the way branches intertwine and how the wind moves long grass. She loves examining contrasting leaf shapes and bright flowers, placed either luckily by nature or deliberately by the gardener.

Helen paints in an abstract or semi-abstract style with the intention of creating a simplified and pared back version of what she sees and responds to. She believes that pleasure can come from the pure sensation of looking at a work of art, without the need for the art to represent anything specific or instantly recognisable. She wants her paintings to inspire joy, mixed with an element of intrigue.

She’s constantly experimenting, which means that she moves between drawing and painting and often uses a mixed media approach. Helen works from sketches, from photos she takes herself, and often from memory. She may start a piece by using her own painted collage pieces to map out the key shapes and then move on to making free marks with other media such as ink, acrylic paint or charcoal. She likes to work across several paintings grouped together before dividing them into individual pieces to refine and complete.

Artist information

Helen grew up in north London and has a degree in English Language and Literature from St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She spent most of her working life as an editor of educational materials at Oxford University Press and she now lives in Bicester, just outside Oxford.

She believes that her meticulous editorial skills have contributed to her ability to observe and select small details in nature. The desire to bring the details together into a harmonious whole and the pleasure she derives from doing this may reflect the process of bringing a book to publication. When she moved from inner-city London to Oxford, Helen’s visual sensitivity was stimulated partly by the beautiful buildings, but mainly by walks in the meadows and along the tree-lined riverbanks.

Helen has taken courses at the St Ives School of Painting and has recently completed their year-long artists’ training and development programme known as the Porthmeor Programme. She was invited to become a member of the Oxford Art Society in 2021, after having had paintings selected for inclusion in two of their open exhibitions. She is an active member of the Society and regularly has work selected for their two annual exhibitions.

Helen had a solo show with the Botley Arts group in 2023 and has exhibited twice during Oxfordshire Artweeks – as part of the West Oxford Community Arts group in 2024, and with the Bicester Art Network in 2025. She also had a pop-up exhibition in a co-working space in Bicester in December 2025. She will be exhibiting during Oxfordshire artweeks 2026 at Bicester Library and will have work in the inaugural exhibition of the Porthmeor 9 in St Ives in July 2026.