“I N F O :
Barbara Helmer’s works are characterized by her meticulous use of layers, colours and transitions between rays of light and darker matter. Barbara takes inspiration from beautiful objects such as crystals, lights and colours seen in nature, but also from commercial imagery and construction drawings.
The sculptural effects of her paintings transform them into seemingly autonomous objects rather than just paintings. The emerald-like items ostensibly pendulate in the atmosphere,
And with that, affect the understanding you have of its surrounding spaces, while simultaneously making you wonder how they could serve as a gateway to another world behind the alluring items.
Her craft is experimental but precise: “I always try different techniques to express the theme of my work.Technique is interesting to me in order to reach the certain effects in a result I pursue. It plays an important role in the image as it determines a quality of the image.
The effect appears strong. Barbara’s murals remind us of all sorts of rapid, soothing and awakening light movements: image the feeling of being in a fast moving vehicle from the window views are feculent, but bright sunlighyt or night lanterns intermittently flicker through, temporarily blinding your sight and altering the next sight that is presented to you.
Those short-lived and conflicting love affairs with luminance versus dusk, confront you when staring at Barbara Helmer’s murals. They make you excited for changeand homesick for unforgivable invariance at the same time.
The other wordly is hinted upon in the titles for her works. Barbara flirts with the ideas that people have of hidden worlds and the automobiles that could transport us there to.
The 747 title refers to a Boeing aircraft from which you can view the atmosphere, aircolours and sunset from an entirely different perspective.
Sometimes the titles also refer to abstract entities which contents are completed differently by each individual, such as: the meanings of tomorrow, soul, conspiracy theories and secret societies.
***
“For Big Art 2021, Murals Inc. invited Barbara Helmer. Her mural ‘The rug, left corner’, is based on the simplified patterns of a Persian carpet. And then only the left corner so that the illusion is created of endless repetition of the pattern. She gives shape to beauty that lies hidden in all earthly matter.”
Mural Tilburg: The image is an abstraction of a chain link, as I actually painted and the counterform of it.




2025
Grote Nederlandse Kunstkalender GNKK(04-04-25)
Foundation B.a.d Groupshow “ENERGY” Rotterdam
WTC artgallery ( with JeanMarc Spaans & Marianne Roodenberg) Rotterdam
2024
VOUCH The Valid Art Valet- art-fair 25 artist
LOODS 6 Amsterdam( Anook Cleoone& MaartenScheffer)
ALFA Gallery (online ARTSY)
2023
ALFA Gallery (online ARTSY)
Mural STADT.WAND.KUNST Mannheim
Mural ALLCAPS -Feijenoord Streetart festival sept
Mural Tilburg Statenlaan – municipality Tilburg
Bovenop Zuid– Exhibition, walkingtour on the rooftop of the shoppingmall Zuidplein. curated by: Foundation B.a.d, Nieuw Charlois, Allcpas rdam, Opperclaes, Uidrotterdam. OpenDakenDagen 2023
Publication LOWDOWN-Magazine
GLOW -Solo OFF HOOK Groningen
2022
Wild Summer of Art : group exhibition 180 Rotterdam based artists
Brutus Rotterdam
BLINDWALLS Breda. Open Call Mural
Collision Project : MURAL in Groothandelsgebouw (Rdam) in Collision project
Tropicana Fest : group exhibition in Bluecity ( a.k.a. tropicana) Rotterdam
by: NeonFoundation
2021
BIGART muurschildering voor Murals.Inc Hembrugterrein Amsterdam
This Art Fair Kromhouthal Amsterdam
2020
Residentie Dresden grafisch atelier via CBK rdam
Galerie Phoebus Rotterdam (groepstentoonstelling)
2019
Art on Paper Amsterdam Galerie Phoebus
MacGuffin magazine illustratie
2012
KUNSTHAL Rotterdam
group exhibition Collectie Hogeschool Rdam


