206. Helen Beard - God's Rays

2026
Oil on canvas
15 x 15 x 4 cm

Helen Beard is a contemporary artist whose work centres on human connection, pleasure, and joy. Working across paintings of varying scales, she creates vibrant compositions that pulse with colour and movement in celebration of the erotic experience. Through rich palettes, cropped perspectives, and sensuous brushwork, Beard explores intimacy through the female gaze, foregrounding pleasure, tenderness, and bodily experience.

Her paintings are characterised by flowing, tactile brushstrokes that echo the motion of touching skin, giving the works a physical energy and immediacy. By fragmenting and abstracting the body, Beard shifts attention away from objectification and towards sensation, emotion, and shared experience.

Beard studied Graphic Design at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design (1989–1992).

Selected solo exhibitions include Dynamo at Paul Stolper Gallery, London (2024); Topography of Desire at DSC Gallery, Prague (2024); The Tulips Are Too Excitable, It Is Winter Here at Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam (2023); Lyrical Lines at Paul Stolper Gallery, London (2021); The Desire Path at Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam (2020); and It’s Her Factory at Unit London (2019).

Selected group exhibitions include Comfort and Joy at Harry Blain, Mayfair, London (2025); Second Lives curated by Paula Lent and Jane Neal (2025); Post Human VII at Cramer Street Gallery (2025); A Brighter Side of Things at Reflex Amsterdam (2025); Erotiek at Limburgs Museum, Netherlands (2025); Erotic City at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York (2025); Ignite The Senses at Villa Maçakızı, Bodrum (2024); Sensitive Content at Unit London (2022); Reason Gives No Answers at Newport Street Gallery (2019); and 21st Century Women at Unit London (2018).