Artist Helena Hadala
Title Over the Edge
Media oil on wood board
Dated
2015
Size 23.5 x 17.25 in. / 59.7 x 43.8 cm.
Frame Size 29.5 x 23.5 x 1.25 in.
Sold $250
Estimate $500 - $700
Notes
signed lower right; signed, titled and dated verso; framed
Reference
Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, Calgary, label verso
Provenance
private collection, Alberta
Biographical Information
Helena Hadala ~ [b.1953] Canadian RCA, ASA
Helena has lived a life dedicated to making fine art.
Her passion for art was ignited early in life. Her High School art instructor, Mr. Pravda, encouraged her to major in Fine Arts at the University of Calgary, where she studied printmaking under J.K. Esler and John Will, painting with Harry Kiyooka, and drawing with Ron Gyo-zo Spickett who became a lifelong mentor.
After graduating with a BFA she then was hired by the Calgary Centennial Planaterium as their artist in residence. On leave from the planetarium, she travelled around Europe for a year to see the art she’d only seen in art history books. Seeing Anthony Gaudi’s work in Barcelona inspired the design for her installation mosaic, now part of the Calgary Civic Collection that originally formed the base for a large Foucault pendulum installation.
She studied under famed Japanese woodcut artist Toshi Yoshida during the almost two and a half years that she lived in Japan, as well as studying Japanese scroll making and panel making under Nakaji Ichikawa in Tokyo.
On her return to Canada, after obtaining her MFA from the U of C, she taught for the University of Calgary and the Alberta College for Art, but has maintained her own studio practice continuously for 45 years.
She was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy for the Arts (RCA) in May of 2010, and has exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally in Japan, Portugal, Finland, and the USA. She shared a joint exhibition entitled 'Inhabiting Spaces' in several venues in Europe with sculptor Katie Ohe and ceramic artist Greg Payce.
Her numerous residencies include Can Serrat located the Montserrat National Park in El Bruc Spain, Coomba NSW Australia, Vermont Studio Centre, USA and the Leighton Colony at the Banff Centre.Her work appears in a large number of public and private collections, including the Art Bank of Canada, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the City of Calgary. She is currently represented by Bugera Lamb Gallery in Edmonton.
biography and other examples in Printmaking in Alberta 1945-1985, by B.Cochran, pg.161, U. of Alberta Press, 1989
Made in Calgary: An Exploration of Art from the 1960s to the 2000s, by Mary-Beth Laviolette, 2016
listed on Artists in Canada, a Union List of Artists' Files, by National Gallery of Canada Library et al, see website at Canadian Heritage Information Network [CHIN]