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Happy Christmas & Happy New Year 2012

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:08:26 +0000

Snowman at the wholesale Christmas market, Beijing, China

One of five pieces at Affordable Art Beijing

admin — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:51:51 +0000

'Dragon panel No. 1'

Two etchings (from ‘Cloud series, Yellow lining’), two woodblock prints (from the ‘New work, Dragon panel’ series) and one photograph on aluminum (‘Boy with Firework’).

10am-6pm, 14-15th May. 798 Space

www.affordableartchina.com

Workshop – Easter weekend photography

admin — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:55:54 +0000

Taken with an iPhone by Frank Yu who attended

Extract from essay – Sheltering from the Storm

admin — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:58:42 +0000

Living as an artist in Beijing on an open-ended mostly self-generated residency, UK artist Helen Couchman independently navigated the construction site for the Bird’s Nest Stadium in December 2007 before the 2008 Olympics where she asked construction workers to pose for 143 haunting photographic portraits whose anonymous faces look out of her resulting book capturing a moment of intense reality in a feverishly rebranding city. (1)

Couchman’s London exhibition last year ‘Cloud series, Yellow lining’ was inspired by a journey above the Beijing skyline: ‘The inadvertent starting point for these works was ….noticing, as the plane in which (I) was travelling descended towards the as yet unrevealed Beijing metropolis, a thin layer of bright yellow cloud, delineating a relatively fine line of material through which the aircraft quickly passed. From the ground nothing of this curious narrow band was visible, only a clear blue sky. There is some irony here in the application of the English expression ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, which suggests that everything bad has its positive, if perhaps at first hidden, aspect. In the present case the matter is reversed, the clear blue of the sky being discreetly penetrated by an invisible layer of tangerine haze. It is difficult to see the ‘silver lining’ in this ominous yellow vision.‘ (2)

(1) ‘WORKERS 工人‘ (Soloshow Publishing, 2008)

(2) ‘Cloud series, Yellow lining‘ 2009

‘Sheltering from the Storm - Artistic Residencies and Environmental Change.’ Published in Leonardo Journal Transactions, March 2011. Written by Bronac Ferran, Royal College of Art, London

Shot for The New York Times – found on the cutting room floor

admin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:08:12 +0000

Although shot in December 2009 I have not seen these images until this week. Taken by freelance news photographer Shiho Fukada we agreed to do the shoot at Beijing Central station where I very first alighted in China from the Trans-Mongolian train – departing Moscow, stopping in Ulaan Baatar and onto Beijing, February 2006.

Images of my work and another portrait from that day were published with a feature by Dan Levin in both the The New York Times and International Herald Tribune arts pages, Sunday 10th January, 2010.

Happy Chinese New Year of the Golden Rabbit, 2011

admin — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:53:38 +0000

Talk – Picturing Beijing

admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:02:41 +0000

‘Picturing Beijing.’ Helen Couchman will be talking about her work at The Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival 2011. Tuesday, 15th March, 10pm.

Happy Christmas!

admin — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:19:37 +0000

‘Snow gate, Heilongjiang Province, Northern China’

Commission – Hublot Gold Cup, Gstaad for The Polo Times

admin — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:50:11 +0000

Mrs. West’s Hats – discussing hats

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:39:26 +0000

Helen Couchman discussing Mrs. West’s Hats with presenter Chloe and milliner Elisabeth Koch. Live radio/video broadcast on 1st December. 8-9pm, Beijing / 12noon-1GMT.

Listen live here on China State Radio 774.