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Helga Joergens
Helga Joergens is an artist whose journey through the world of art is as multifaceted as her creations. From her early fascination with Surrealism inspired by a school trip to Dutch museums, to her deep academic engagement with art history and medieval German literature, Joergens has continuously explored the intersection of creativity, scholarship, and conservation. Her work, which spans painting, printmaking, and paper conservation, is informed by a lifetime of study, practice, and a profound respect for the legacy of art. In this interview, Joergens reflects on how her diverse experiences have shaped her artistic vision, the influence of historical art on her practice, and the personal significance of nature in her recent abstract compositions. Through her thoughtful approach, Joergens not only creates art but also contributes to its preservation, ensuring that future generations can continue to be inspired by the beauty and wisdom embedded in the works of the past and present.
Your artistic journey spans multiple disciplines, from art history and paper conservation to painting and teaching. How have these different experiences and areas of expertise influenced your creative process and artistic vision?
My artistic journey began at the age of 16 when I took part in an excursion with my art teacher and other students of an afternoon art club at the school, to the Netherlands to visit art museums in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague where I was acquainted with the art of Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals and Vincent van Gogh.
However, at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, I was introduced to the art of Surrealism when I saw, for the first time, paintings by Salvador Dalí, for example ‘Espagne’, 1938, (https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/4294/espagne).
I was so fascinated by the surprising content of Surrealist paintings that they inspired me to paint in the Surrealist style myself.
Back at home, in the art club, we later talked about what kind of jobs one could find in the field of art and the profession of art historians and working in art museums and galleries were discussed and that you needed to study History of Art in order to become an Art Historian. I did study History of Art in Hamburg and Göttingen, finished with a doctorate about the German sculptor Edwin Scharff who worked in the first half of the 20th century, and worked in two public art galleries in Germany.
My artistic Journey changed very much over the years. After my Surrealist paintings at school, my studies at Göttingen University broadened my knowledge of the art field. When I was introduced to printmaking like engravings and etchings in fine art, I joined an etching class, first in the local Adult Education Institute, and when the course closed down, I continued at the University. The influences between my own art and my Art Historical studies went both ways, practising art and trying out different technical areas and approaches. This helped me to understand better how art was created by other artists, and the challenges which the materials and processes give them but also the possibilities of expression that are offered.
On the other hand, seeing and studying art of other artists informed my own practice as well. The art I have seen by great masters inspire me in my work today, even if it was years ago that I have seen those artworks. The benefit of this kind of inspiration is that it will be filtered through my brain and comes out in my art in my own language and not as a copy of another’s artwork. The picture, Bouquet of Flowers, 2016, for example, was inspired by Impressionist art. And what stimulated my etching, Cubistic Composition (below) in 1985, is clear to see.
I was introduced to the conservation of paintings and works on paper in a seminar taught by the head restorer of a public art gallery who also showed us his studio and work. Later, when I wrote a guide book of the Kloster- und Wallfahrtskirche Nikolausberg (Monastery- and Pilgrimage Church St. Nicholas near Göttingen) in 1980, I visited the studio of the painting restorer who was restoring one of the medieval altar pieces of the church, and regularly visited the studios and the painting restorer at the Kunsthalle Bremen, the main public art gallery in Bremen, Germany, where I worked as an art historian in the second half of the 1980s. I was so interested in what can be done to bring back the former beauty of works of art after they had suffered damage. I deeply care about the preservation of artworks for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations.
That is a reason why I became a paper conservator myself. Moreover, the knowledge of paper conservation made me more aware of the characteristics of materials in documents and artworks on paper and their vulnerabilities. In order to make my drawings and paintings on paper more durable, I now use only materials of artists’ quality, simply because, for example, the pigments of the colours are more saturated and lightfast and don’t deteriorate so fast. Papers made from cotton don’t turn brown so easily, are more resilient and age much better. I endeavour to create the best product for the future owners of my art.
You started your academic journey with a focus on medieval German literature and art history. How do you see these scholarly interests reflecting in your artistic practice, and in what ways do they inform your work?
I was fascinated by medieval literature because of its lively story telling. Texts, like the stories of Tristan [and Isolde] by Gottfried von Strassburg (about 1210),
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (about 1200-1210), or the Song of the Nibelungs (about 1200), were performed at noble courts and described the life of knights and courtly love and/or revenge. They showed similarities with the stories of the court of King Arthur. What I found interesting was the information about the life at the time and the general human wisdom which could be found in them, and which is still valid today. You have the same phenomenon with the Canterbury Tales (late 14th century) and the work of William Shakespeare.
The art of the time, mainly religious art, often altar pieces, fascinated me with its great beauty. It is also interesting to observe how European art started with simple, even abstract, forms expressing the deep concentration on the Christian message, the soul of a person and the afterlife. With time, artists strived to paint a more realistic picture of the world. Improved artistic skills, the invention of linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi (1425) and the perfection of the use of oil paints in the mid-fifteenth century by Jan van Eyck paved the way for the achievements of the great idealised reality of the Renaissance period (15th and 16th century).
Salvador Dali was fascinated by the painters of the Renaissance. My Surrealist pictures are about story telling with a twist. Nothing is as you may expect it and the pictures are full of surprises.
The painting, Broken Heart, is a picture both inspired by Surrealism but also by medieval art in its attention to detail. I always enjoyed the depiction of dragons and the devil in medieval art [1]. They were meant to look scary, and were surely frightening to the contemporary viewer. Nowadays, I don’t find them frightening but rather interesting to analyse which means those artists used to create such images of terror. So, my dragon, representing Evil, was inspired by medieval depictions of dragons.
In Broken Heart, you see a glass heart floating in some clouds above the mud flats of the North Sea with an urban silhouette in the background. The heart is broken due to a fight of Good and Evil in it, represented by a green dragon and a white horse locked with their forelegs in combat. What is depicted is the moment before the heart will burst apart from the vehemence of the fight with shards of glass already fallen on to the mud below. There are little details of story-telling like the lips in the grass at the feet of the dragon or the duck’s head in the cloud below it; they are typical elements of Surrealism. Whereas the picture was inspired by a poem of a school friend, the scenery stems from a walk I did with that friend.
Moving to London in 1990 marked a significant shift in your career. What were the most challenging and rewarding aspects of this transition, both personally and professionally?
Moving to London at the beginning of 1990 changed my life completely. I slowly felt my way into my new environment, renovating our flat and learning the language better, particularly how to understand the South London accent!
However, what I really enjoyed was living in London, having all the great museums, galleries, theatres and concert halls within a 30 minutes’ journey by public transport.
I experienced life in London as very exciting, as my drawing Exuberance, 1992, expresses:
Eventually, I found part-time teaching positions, firstly in adult education, later in further and higher education on Higher National Diploma courses. I had the chance to teach on a wide variety of courses on different levels - History of Art and Design, Contextual Studies and Critical Studies in Art and Design, moreover, as part of a teaching team in Film Studies and on a Jewellery Design course. I really enjoyed the variety and the challenge of researching topics I had not worked on before and preparing interesting classes in new areas of the broader art and design world. It was interesting to learn how closely linked art, design in its broadest sense, film making and even jewellery design stylistically are at any given time, and that similar, if not the same artistic principles can be applied to all of these areas.
It became clear how much these areas were inspired by the art of the time or even how they influence each other. Artists and designers were concerned with the same questions, problems, world views and expression in their work. In my teaching, I wanted to open the student’s eyes to the vast opportunities they had in finding inspiration in the world around them, particularly in the field of art. I wanted to teach them how to confidently approach works of art and design, view them, deconstruct their formal language in order to recognise the means the makers had used to bring their messages across. Or in other words: What is the message in a visual work and how is it conveyed? I wanted them to be able to look at any work, have means to analyse and evaluate it in order to find inspiration for their own practice. Also, how to analyse and evaluate their own work in order to develop the most successful outcomes. Moreover, how do other influences of culture, society, economics or politics inform art and design? Where do they see their position in society and what do they want to express in their work?
Particularly enjoyable were our trips to the London art galleries and museums, not only the National Gallery, Tate Galleries and the British Museum, but also to the Design Museum, Fashion and Textiles Museum, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Theatre Museum (closed in 2007) and a very interesting Japanese Manga exhibition. There is simply no substitute for experiencing art and design in reality.
Another rewarding circumstance was that my students came from all over the world. Many had come to the United Kingdom as refugees, fleeing from wars and now took the chance of further education in order to progress either to University or into jobs. Helping them was one of the most worthwhile parts of my teaching.
I also worked on the wonderful Housebound Learners Project at South Thames College. Unfortunately, it closed after a few years due to lack of funding. I taught adult volunteers, who had been teamed up with a housebound adult each, for two hours, gave them specially written teaching material prepared by me, like photographs of the artworks discussed in class, background information and questionnaires, in order to enable them to teach their housebound friend for an hour. Once a term, we visited a gallery relating to the course with the housebound students. There was also a yearly party in the college furthering our contacts. We all very much enjoyed our classes and gatherings.
For myself and my own art practice, through the preparation of my teaching and visits to museums, investigating so many different works of art, learning more in depth about movements, approaches and expressions, taking over a thousand slides to show to my students, I broadened my own horizons too.
Your work in paper conservation is marked by precision and care. How does this meticulousness translate into your painting and drawing practices, and how do you balance these seemingly disparate skills?
Paper conservation is the conservation and repair of paper objects as well as their preservation in safe housing like mounts and frames, special boxes, folders, or display cabinets depending on what the objects are and where they are held. I am concerned with flat objects, mainly artworks which I conserve and then safely house in mounts and frames.
Having made drawings and prints myself helps me to understand the materials and processes involved in the creation of art on paper and to identify techniques used in the works that need conservation. I have also learnt to recognise what the dangers are for paper to deteriorate and get damaged. Apart from mechanical damage through tears and holes, the endangering factors are light, moisture and insects like woodworm. Light can bleach out colours and darken paper, moisture can lead to the change of the paper’s shape by making it cockle or buckle. Moisture can also lead to mould growing on the paper and destroying it. Housing prints or drawings in mounts made from wood pulp are also a danger for them, as with time, when the mountboard deteriorates with age, brown colour will be released from the fibres and migrate into the artwork. This heightened awareness of materials and their characteristics, give me inspiration for my own work.
Your artistic process involves starting without a preconceived idea and letting the image evolve. Can you describe a specific work where this approach led to a surprising or profound outcome?
My first Surreal drawings began almost like doodles and were developed into full scale drawings. I was taking “An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for a walk's sake.”[2], as the German-Swiss artist, Paul Klee, (1879–1940) stated it as his first artistic principle in his Pedagogical Sketchbook for his teaching at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany 1925.
Here is my drawing, Fantasia, 1972, pen and black ink. I started with first one, then several sweeping lines, filling in the spaces between them with abstract or figurative drawing, carrying on observing what was happening and letting my imagination lead my hand. You see a large eye, a number of different faces displaying different emotions, a horse’s head, an arrow, trees and snakes. One area merges out of another almost like in a dream or a film.
The oil pastel, Cubist Composition with Fruit, 1985, was developed in a similar manner: I started with the outlines and then developed the picture in its details.
During the Covid-19 restrictions, you found solace in nature and incorporated themes of hope and light into your work. How did these challenging times shape your artistic perspective and influence the themes you explore?
I always loved nature. I grew up at the edge of a rural town, had the chance to go horse riding as a girl on a farm about two miles away, to which my friends and I cycled along a quiet country lane. Through this, I developed a love of horses and nature.
Nature and the unrestricted view of sunrises or sunsets were something I missed when living in London. However, in 2013, my husband, the painter David Lendrum (https://www.davidlendrum.co.uk/), and I moved to a rural village in north west Norfolk, UK, with a garden and a farm track leading straight into the fields from our doorstep. Therefore, we had the good fortune during the Covid lockdown to be able to walk safely in the countryside at the end of each day, when nobody was about and we would not meet anybody. It was so healing to experience that nature was not concerned with Covid or human worries. Birds and animals carried on as normal, the trees and flowers kept growing, there were still beautiful sunsets. Recognising this larger picture of life put everything else into perspective and gave me hope.
The drawing, Morning, 2022, shows glowing colours within surrounding darkness, expressing my feeling at the time.
Moreover, sharing my life with my husband and discussing our art with him, helped enormously. Another crucial support for me were my telephone conversations with my family in Germany, particularly with my sister, but with friends too. Knowing they were all right was so important and led me to being thankful. Thankfulness was a significant feeling at the time and still is. Gratefulness is a key to happiness.
You've mentioned that light plays a metaphorical role in your pieces. Could you elaborate on how you use light symbolically in your work and its significance to your overall message?
