I am a multidisciplinary artist who makes bold and colourful screen-prints, paintings, drawings and digital designs; all centred around bridging the gap between movement and stillness.’ Born in 1998, I am an international artist with roots in North Wales. I graduated from The University of Leeds in 2021, with a First Class BA in Fine Art, and I continue to create work exploring the use of colour in manufacturing movement.

 

I use the Samoiloff Effect to turn layered illustrations into short and repetitive stop-motion animated cycles, so that when exposed to red, green and blue LED lighting, my work moves and changes. I love to explore deeper subjects within this practice, using the sense of movement as a form of storytelling, allowing meanings to unfurl and fade in and out of clarity as my paintings and prints change. Regardless of the lighting effects, I also enjoy the vivid colours my work generates through the layered subtractive primary colours (Cyan, Yellow and Magenta). The vibrancy of my colour palette allows me to produce exhaustive works even in natural daylight. Art Form Multi-media, light-reactive art Medium & Dimensions Acrylic, coloured pencil and RGB LED lights Art Description My work focuses on bridging the gap between movement and stillness by creating light reactive paintings and drawings which move and change under RGB LED lights. I use colour theory and the subtractive primary colours to layer images at different stages of movement. This creates short, repetitive, stop-motion animations when displayed under colour-changing lights, providing an immersive viewing experience.

 

I use this effect to tell stories, conveying difficult emotions or ideas, and to depict progressions or cycles. Different images and meanings fade in and out of clarity on a slower lighting sequence, so that layers can be observed individually while three different time-frames continue to coexist on the canvas. Without the use of speciality lighting, my pieces remain bold, colourful and eye-catching in natural light. The vibrant colour-palette integral to this technique juxtaposes the more sensitive and heartfelt notions my paintings explore; such as anxiety, frustration and longing. The overlapping colours and designs in my work provokes visual overwhelm, identifying with the hard-to-depict subject matter and emotional saturation.

 

Recently, I have been experimenting with the arrangement of the cyan, magenta and yellow layers which make up my pieces, spreading them further apart so they can be viewed all at once (See ‘DROPPING AND CATCHING’). I am interested in using these colours to represent various planes of existence, coinciding on one canvas. Each image holds its own story, unaware of the role it plays as part of a bigger picture. I intend to develop this idea further as my practice progresses. 

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"I stumbled across Helenya’s work through one of those magical moments in the Instagram algorithm — and I’m so glad I did. One image, alive with shifting colour, caught my eye. With every flash, it transformed — the movement was so seamless and mesmerising that I paused, caught in that rare moment where your brain tries to understand how the image dances on the screen.

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What Helenya has created is more than beautiful — it’s modern, meaningful, and vibrantly alive. Not only is she a talented visual artist, she’s also an educator, sharing her techniques and passion through online courses that help others explore light-reactive art from the ground up.

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Helenya offers something different: a new language of motion, colour, and emotion — where stories unfold in pulses of light and rhythm. 

 

We're proud to welcome Helenya to Imaginative Reaction and can’t wait to watch her story continue to evolve."

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Marcus O'Shaughnessy (Founder of Imaginative Reaction)