HELEN MCILDOWIE-JENKINS, ARTIST & ICON PAINTER
The icons featured are the work of an English icon painter, Helen McIldowie-Jenkins. For over 16 years, Helen has undertaken many public and private commissions for various churches, chapels, institutions and individuals in the UK and overseas, especially the USA.
Whilst many of the commissions are for archetypal Byzantine and Russian images, (usually requested for special occasions, such as ordinations, baptisms and presentations) Helen has also composed many new icons to meet specific devotional functions and where no prototype now exists, i.e East Anglian and Saxon Saints. These contemporary commissions are an opportunity for the continuity of the universal spiritual precepts of icon painting and for the iconographic development of the English spiritual tradition.
Helen has travelled to various parts of mainland Greece, Northern and Southern Cyprus, Istanbul, Ravenna and Sicily to study Byzantine art and icons and has most recently made several trips to St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt.
The Sinaitic icons will be the focus of ‘Icon Adventures’ – specialist art-history and icon painting holidays to Sinai that will be offered from late 2008. (For more information please contact info@elenisicons.co.uk)
Much of Helen's work has been overseen by the critical eye of the Orthodox priest and writer, Fr Andrew Phillips, who particularly encourages new icons to be painted of the early saints of East Anglia and Britain and has commissioned ‘new’ icons of these from Helen for the church of St. John the Wonder Worker, Felixstowe.
As well as lecturing to various societies, Helen has also taught groups and individuals the medieval techniques necessary to icon painting; gesso preparation, gilding and the particular use of egg tempera. This practical tuition is in relation to the art historical context of icons and its development in the West - as well as emphasizing the need for continuity of tradition, spiritual function and above all, Presence.
Helen has a background in Fine Arts and Ceramics and has worked as a museum illustrator, graphic designer and picture conservationist. More recently, Helen has worked in adult education and as a Colour and Paint advisor for leading interior design companies in Suffolk and Chelsea.
Following her first class BA Honours degree in Art History, Helen was awarded the Edmund J. Safra Scholarship to the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2006 to study her Masters Degree. Her Dissertation investigated an unusual form Crucifixion iconography. Helen is now based in Kilburn, North London and is currently working on a large commission of the Stations of the Cross for a church in Norfolk.
Helen has been invited to be the artist-in-residence at the Cathedral School, Llandaff, Cardiff in September. During this residency, Helen will be working with over 160 pupils at Key Stage 3 and 4 and giving a lecture during, as part of the school's Jubilee celebrations. Helen has also been commissioned by the school to compose a large icon for the 19th c. school chapel.