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Artist Statement:
The work of the Cubists
made a strong impression on me
at a very young age. I often
use a Cubist approach when I
manipulate space. I
artificially restrict depth in
my works, by forcing my
designs into the confines of a
two dimensional plane which
flattens and distorts depth...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Reviews:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Eric Helin Biography:
| Biographical information for Eric Helin can be found below. The artist may choose what information to display. Sometimes the artist chooses not to display personal information to the general public. |
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Age
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0
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| Gender |
Male
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| Status |
Committed
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| Children |
0
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| Religion |
Christian |
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| Education |
Graduate Degree |
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| Hobbies / Interests |
Writing Music, Neon |
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| Favorite Artistic Medium |
Neon
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| Favorite Arthistory Movement |
Cubism - (1908 - 1920)
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| Favorite Visual Artist |
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| Favorite Work of Art |
On the Terrace - Renoir
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| Biggest Artistic Inspiration |
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| Why Did You Become An Artist |
I had no choice |
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| Your Personal Biography |
Eric Helín says he can recall several incidents over the course of his life that contributed to his artistic insight and eventually his career. When he was two the family left Texas and moved to Birmingham, Alabama. At the time, Birmingham was one of the hubs for the U.S. steel industry. He recounts the following memories of Birmingham where he first encountered steel which would later become his main sculptural medium.
“There is a huge statue of Vulcan (god of the forge), on Red Mountain symbolizing Birmingham’s connection with the steel industry. At night, the sky reflected the reddish glow of molten steel. I had no idea this first brush with steel and the statue were a portent of the part that steel would play in my later life as a sculptural medium. But if destiny plays a role in our lives, somehow the seeds were planted there. The statue had such an impact on me, that years later my mother, remembering this, sent me a newspaper clipping of it. From the first moment I saw the statue I was captivated by it. At that time the tip of the spear he holds was lit at night.”
He says he also clearly remembers the first time he became aware of a work of art, enough to really appreciate it.
My first conscious connection to a work of art came when I was about six years old. My mother and I were looking through a book when we saw a picture by Picasso – Three Blind Musicians – from his Cubist period. I was fascinated by the picture and told my mother how much I liked it. She told me, in no uncertain terms, the picture was “ugly,” but I refused to give in to her attempts to convince me to the contrary. Today, Cubism still continues to influence my work.
It was in high school, that he was reintroduced to ceramics. He remembers his first encounter with ceramics came in fourth grade when he made a tiny bowl from terra cotta. He still has the bowl sitting on a shelf and claims that for a first attempt he doesn’t think it was half bad. Clay was the first medium he really connected with. He loved the pliability of clay, which he thought of it as the ultimate material. A material you could form into anything or any shape. He noticed shortly after he began working with clay, that the other students were making bowls or pots which differed in size and shape and in how they were decorated but they were still bowls and pots. He says he really didn’t think much about it at the time but realizes now the structural forms of his pieces were all unique. He never realized there were early indications that he should pursue a career in art and design. He remembers creating a ceramic hand about this time called “stargazer” the fingers actually spiraled upwards to a point and a ball rested on the tip. He entered it in a local art show. When it was stolen, he was devastated and gave up working in ceramics for years.
He says he can’t remember when his fascination with neon started, but remembers being dimly aware of standing and staring at a neon sign in some place, like a moth attracted to a candle flame. One of his parents, was holding his hand and tugging on it, saying: “let’s go” he remembers pulling against the tug and still staring over his shoulder at the light.
He moved to Los Angeles shortly after he graduated from high school, “my main goal,” he says, “was two-fold: to live on my own and become a rock star.” I could write music but as the only guy in the business who leveled with me said: “kid, your music is far too visual to make it on the hit charts.” While he was living in Los Angeles he began working at a small animation studio in Santa Monica. He says he never realized how many people would give their right arm to be working in the animation business. While it was fun at the time, it never meant much more to him than a paycheck. He says he never realized how much the skills he learned there would help him later on. Next he tried to free-lance his graphic art skills but unless a person was working for a firm with the equipment the paste-up process would keep a person poor. He left Los Angeles and went back to college and then on to graduate school. It wasn’t until he was in graduate school that it finally dawned on him that his real gift was creativity. Every artist has a favorite material in which he likes to work but no other material has captured his imagination like steel.
It was about a year after I began working with steel that I connected with it in a unique way. I was outdoors around dusk, cutting a thick piece of metal with a chop saw. The waning light gave the sparks spraying from the cut a special intensity. Sparks ricocheted from the legs of my trousers and fell in a cascade of falling stars, that showered around my feet. These came bouncing back up and formed a knee-deep pool of hazy light, in which I seemed to be suspended. As I looked around me, swept up in a kind of momentary euphoria, I suddenly recalled a long-forgotten passage from Ayn Rand’s classic industrial novel Atlas Shrugged in which she describes molten steel in the most intense and sensual terms. Until that instant I was unable to really understand the meaning of those words that I’d read almost 20 years before, but in that moment I suddenly came full circle, I understood the true nature of steel and I knew why I loved working with it.
“. . . the first break of the liquid metal into the open came as a shocking sensation of morning. The narrow streak pouring through space had the pure white color of sunlight. Black coils of steam were boiling upward, streaked with violent red. Fountains of sparks shot in beating spasms, as from broken arteries. The air seemed torn to rags, reflecting a raging flame that was not there, red blotches whirling and running through space . . . But the liquid metal had no aspect of violence. It was a long white curve with the texture of satin and the friendly radiance of a smile. It flowed obediently . . . A flow of stars hung above the stream, leaping out of its placid smoothness, looking delicate as lace and innocent as children’s sparklers. Only at a closer glance could one notice that the white satin was boiling. Splashes flew out at times and fell to the ground below . . . they burst into flame.” Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
“Ayn Rand,” said one psychologist, in a tone of immense disgust, “created an eroticism of steel.” “To think that steel is erotic,” said one young sculptor friend, “borders on insanity.” That may be the case but at the same time it’s still true. Like it or not, anyone who has worked with steel understands this quality. Ayn Rand didn’t make it up, she simply explained it. Steel is also very much alive – when you cut through it, in the screech of the metal, you can hear a rabbit scream!!”
He says, in the process of creating something, he’s able to enter a mental state that he refers to as : “being ‘on glide’.” He claims that a few years ago, he found he was able to enter this creative state at will and after that he never suffered from any kind of creative block. He says that whatever makes it possible to enter this state of mind seems to have been the culmination of a realization process that began several years ago when he started reading a book on Animation from Script to Screen by Shamus Culhane, an early animator and peaked during a visit to Taliesin West.
I was visiting Taliesin West one sunny day in mid-April of 1998. Nothing was particularly special about that day and I'd already visited there several times before. I’ve always been fascinated by Frank Lloyd Wright's work. I was outside, in the area behind the sitting room, when I began to study a series of flat columns adjacent to a small reflective pool. Some were larger at the top than at the bottom and vice versa. As I moved my head from side to side, they appeared to scissor open and closed. In one position they actually gave the appearance of being a solid wall but as I would shift the physical position of my body, they would seem to scissor open revealing the spaces in between. As I crossed the gravel driveway towards the theater I remember saying to myself. “Wright is destroying space and recreating it on his own lines!!” At that moment I had something on the level of a profound experience and I "understood" something that I had never known before. All I know is that after that happened, I could do things with forms I wasn’t able to do before. Every one of my pieces is, in some way, ultimately a reflection of this ability. After this happened, forms suddenly seemed fluid, whereas before I had seen them as solid and static. I can't communicate it perfectly but I’ve tried to explain it to the degree that it’s possible in the Dynamics of Concrescentism.
He makes the following assertions about his work.
“My work is not about the random attachment or combination of dissimilar forms or shapes in a conglomeration but rather achieving a harmonious resolution in the interconnectedness of dissimilar forms in fact my work is probably more about the achievement of this balance than anything else. This is one of the guiding factors of my work.”
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