Helen DeRamus Works

In the third grade my teacher asked me to paint a mural on the wall of the classroom with dogwood blossoms. I really had no idea that I could draw well. Though I was nervous, I was thrilled to be asked. That one day had a powerful influence on me. Because of physical limitations since birth, my visual life began giving me a wondrous world that has expanded and continues.

I had a camera from the time I was seven, a gift from my father. With that camera, I would continually take photos always very abstract images only I understood. It was always the investigation of light and texture that attracted me more than anything, then as now.

I always say that I took a circuitous route to working full-time as an artist but with each work experience I gained insight and image memory that inform the paintings and photographs that I create. Just to name a few of those experiences: I taught high school, worked as a freelance clothing designer and ran a successful public relations photography business. When I returned to Atlanta in 1979 from the New York Metropolitan area after an absence of thirteen years, it was the late Joseph Perrin whose encouragement led me to pursue a career as an artist. I worked with him for several years in his critique sessions and painting classes, concentrating on color.

For past thirty-five years, I have worked full-time as a painter in the Atlanta Metro Area. I am an artist interested in mixed mediums and experimentation. Working with oil paint for most of my career I added encaustic medium, in 1990, to my practice and continue to work with photographs.