Helen Downie - Unskilled worker
The path to becoming one of London’s critically-acclaimed and best known artists has been a fascinating one for Helen Downie who works under the moniker of Unskilled Worker. Her story is now folkloric, a fairy tale of sorts; an artist creating and posting work on instagram to be plucked from the sea of millions by the eye of a visionary. It’s a story that is as magical as her paintings.
Her wildly successful Instagram caught the eagle eye of Alessandro Michele and led to a long and fruitful collaboration with Gucci. First up was a series of unforgettable portraits followed by a collection featuring Downie’s artwork.
Gucci x Unskilled Worker, courtesy of Gucci
Gucci x Unskilled Worker, courtesy of Gucci
Gucci x Unskilled Worker, courtesy of Gucci
Gucci x Unskilled Worker, courtesy of Gucci
Gucci x Unskilled Worker, courtesy of Gucci
Downie’s work has been described as ‘a melee of ethereality, innocence, inherent flow and instinct that all come together in a spectacular fashion.’ She bewitches and beguiles with innocence and depth, making an indelible mark on the viewer. The wonder in her work belongs to childhood, a distant place for most adults yearning for an impossible return to the land of story books and vast oceans of untamed emotion.
Downie is fiercely passionate about inclusion and has donated many paintings to support charities and hospitals, in 2021 she took part in a public exhibition to celebrate international Woman’s month.
FEATURED IN The HUE issue
We caught up with Downie during the pandemic while she was painting in Italy and asked her about her work and more specifically about her relationship with colour. Read on…
What is your earliest memory of colour?
I’m sure that as children we saw colours differently - we feel them more. The memory of colour from my childhood is woven into my work, they were so vivid. A bright vermillion woollen cape with huge golden buttons; it was made for me from an old coat of my mother’s. I’ve drawn on the feeling of it a few times in my paintings. Also from around the same age, looking up through pink cherry blossom against a bright blue sky, magical!
Protection, 2019
Chalk pastel, ink, pen and charcoal on Fabriano paper.
142 x 100 cm
How did you become an artist?
For most of my life I wanted to paint. One day the want outweighed the fear, so I began. There wasn’t a plan and I didn’t think past the first painting but once I had started I couldn’t stop. The excitement was so familiar, exactly the same as being a child. I still feel that excitement.
The Welbeloves, 2017
76 x 56 cm
Chalk, ink, pen, charcoal and oil pastel on Fabriano paper.
Has a particular artist inspired you with their use of colour?
I find music as inspiring as visual art, I imagine making music is a similar process to painting. A Russian children’s book illustration from the 1970s can resonate as well as a Charles Burchfield water colour or a Max Richter song. I’m drawn to images with clear colours that sing and somehow look ominous, sad and happy and a touch of death, a strange mix.
The Four Seasons by Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)
How do you begin a painting and what is your process? When does colour come into play?
I notice my dreams and where my attention is focused and the way that I’m feeling. I keep notes rather than sketch books, just odd little lines that have come into my head, it can be a memory or something triggered by watching a film, or a conversation. They’re all quite random. An image will begin to form in my minds eye, it’s dream like and ever changing and far grander than the finished work. The colours happens as I paint, it’s instinctive and I’ve learnt that the voice in my minds eye always knows where it’s going, sometimes my thinking takes over and questions where my hands are reaching, those parts of the painting are usually reworked.
The Book of ill
Have you ever been surprised by a painting with where it's taken you?
I can work on the same picture for seven weeks and it’s only in the last few days that the thing happens. I don’t really know what the thing is, I do when I see it and it always surprises me as I don’t expect it to turn up!
The Unexpected Guest
What's your favorite colour and why?
I can’t pick just one because they have their own magical way of behaving around each other and it’s too much fun! At the moment I really like what purple does when it’s hanging out with a turquoise or light lime green with a dark blue. Colours talk and dance with each other and some definitely aren’t friends and become dull when they sit together but a little touch of another colour can bring them together.
The Green Eyed Toad, 2017
Chalk pastel, ink, pen and charcoal on Fabriano paper.
100 x 70 cm
What's the most surprising thing about you that people don't know?
I’m not very sociable when I’m in the middle of a painting, I can’t switch off from it, I find it difficult to listen and be present with people. I annoy myself with that.
How have you managed being in the pandemic?
When we first went into lockdown I painted a self portrait, Walking With The Lavender Wolves. Once that was finished I felt as if my mind had been emptied. I felt an enormous pressure to create but it was as if I’d moved into a different part of my head, an empty part! I had to accept the feeling and stop trying. After a few months the feeling and thoughts came back and I’m able to paint but sometimes the distance between us all at the moment catches up with me and makes me feel sad.
Walking With The Lavender Wolves, 2020
Gouache, chalk pastel on Fabriano paper.
142 x 78 cm
Want more?
Talking with Helen Downie - a film by Gucci
join Unskilled Worker on instagram