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This poetic use of materials can be seen as a reflection of her inner life, her struggle with loneliness and depression, and her quest for meaning and beauty. As such, she applied
glass in different forms. Glass added colour, light, reflection, and sparkle to her world, contrasting with the village and arid landscape beyond. Glass created fantasy but may even
suggest a connection with an underlying theme of impermanence and fate. Concrete was used, often mixed with crushed glass and wire armatures for most of the sculptures. It
gave her sculptures a solid and durable form but also allowed her to shape them into various textures, themes, and motifs. Wire created the skeletons of her sculptures and a base
for details and embellishments. It also gave them a sense of movement and dynamism and a delicate and intricate appearance. Mirrors and mirror pieces underscore the whimsical
but also add fantastical reflections, mystery, and depth. Helen cut metal sheets into various symbolic shapes and sizes, such as circles, stars, crescents, and hearts, which she
attached to her sculptures using wire or nails. Some metal sheets were painted to add colour and contrast and focus interest.
Helen ultimately used materials and transformed them creatively to manifest her themes. In her hands, materials metamorphosed to enhance her messages through a contrast
between the old and the new, the fragile and the solid, the transparent and the opaque, light and shadow. She willed them into a personal, magical, fourdimensional
world of forms, textures, light, and colours.
212 FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT
FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT 213