Up Our Street

NO.7 TYGA HELME

“Painting with feeling is so important; to look at the subject more than the page”

WE MEET TYGA HELME IN THE WILTSHIRE COUNTRYSIDE TO SEE HOW THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN NATURE AND PAINTING ARE MERRILY BLURRED.

With her works so alive with nature, relocating from London to Wiltshire in March last year was a logical step for Tyga Helme. Her oil paintings and pastel drawings are inherently tied to the natural world – forests, mountains, flowers – that she sketches en plein air then finishes inside. Moving here has helped close that gap. “Every day I work from observation outside and every day I can be in the studio as well. I've tried to work a lot more with memory recently and the memories are fresher here,” she says. “It flows better.”

Now based just south of Marlborough, Tyga trained at the Royal Drawing School after a joint fine art and history of art degree at Edinburgh University. Her early works saw her document the enveloping canopies of the Himalayan forests and hillscapes of Italy. Today on her easel – and scattered all over the studio floor – are images of the surrounding landscape during a particularly wet spring. She will start most days with a slow morning and then a walk in the countryside. Once back at the studio, she’ll piece things together.

The double-height space, with its skylight facing north for the best light and shelves full of books, is a cornucopia for her to paint in. Tyga admits to working quickly here. “I find the flow comes when I’m slightly on the edge of being out of control with a drawing,” she says. “It also helps me find surprising marks. It means there’s a lot of things that don’t work, but it all informs the working day.”

Tyga’s early work was mainly monochrome. A trip to India helped her embrace colour, which she now uses in oils, pastels and ink.

Tyga paints at the easel but more of then than not sketches on the floor, where she says she can feel more involved in a work. “I always end up there, I don't know why,” she jokes

A mixture of works nearing completion in the studio.

Tyga describes British painter Sargy Mann as being an influence on her work. He slowly lost his sight a decade or so into his career but carried on, producing even more personal, sensory works. “Painting with feeling is so important; to look at the subject more than the page,” says Tyga.

Indeed, instinct is key to her own work. So much so, she usually paints on the floor. “Maybe it's an immersion thing - not being able to see anything else, being down there,” she says. Surrounded by numerous works in progress, her pleasure in the immediacy of showing the world outside on paper is obvious. “I like an intensity of decision making. It makes you as present as possible.”

Towards the end of the day, Tyga shuffles a pile of sketches in front of her, many the same, but different, showing her understanding of nature and why she remains UP OUR STREET.

Past works pile up in the guest bedroom at her Wiltshire home.

The artist’s colour swatches that, like a decorator, she uses to plan her works. No wonder she cites French Nabis painter Pierre Bonnard – known as a leading colourist in the Post-Impressionist movement – as a favourite.

Exterior of her base in Wiltshire, where she made the full-time move just before lockdown in 2020 and has remained ever since.

WRITTEN BY 8 HOLLAND STREET CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TOM MORRIS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLLIE TOMLINSON

ART DIRECTION BY ALEX MASTERS

Painting mostly from memory helps bring an intensity to her works and a strong sense of energy, she says.

Community spirit in the countryside – Tyga supplying eggs to some neighbours.

NO.7 TYGA HELME

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Tyga Helme