"Throughout my practice as a whole, in terms of repetition, there is this kind of treasure hunt of mark making. A single brushstroke or painting fragment can be traced back through my previous works, and its development and changes tracked. In this way, I see painting almost as a kind of 'genealogy' of mark making, a repository of time and memory."
Helen Bermingham's works become both physical and psychological spaces - shifting terrains where memory, time, and material gesture meet. The artist's process begins with fragments: digital collages composed from photographs of brushstrokes and painted marks drawn from previous paintings. These selected micro-compositions constitute the foundations for new paintings, creating a layered dialogue between past and present. As paint is applied, stratified, erased, and reapplied, these familiar forms are repeated and transformed, opening up new spaces of association.
Bermingham's paintings blur the lines between recollection, iteration and invention, offering viewers an open, dynamic field where meaning is always in motion - glimpsed, remembered, and reimagined.
Helen Bermingham holds an MA in Painting from The Royal College of Art and a BA in History of Art and Drama from Trinity College Dublin. She has exhibited throughout the UK, USA, and Europe, including at The Cabin and The Bunker LA, Luca Tommasi Arte Milan, GR Gallery New York, Mint Gallery Munich, Haricot Gallery, and Taymour Grahne Projects London. Bermingham is a recipient of the Ali Alkazzi Scholarship Award at The Royal College of Art and recently completed an artist residency at The La Brea Studio Artist Residency in LA. Bermingham won the staff prize for the Dentons Art Prize 2019 and was shortlisted for Anthology 2017 at Charlie Smith London. Her works are held in private collections in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the USA.
