THOMAS HELMICK Artist

The Grand Canyon 2, pastels, belong to the same period as the oils on canvas that bear the same name, Grand Canyon. As I tend to work using both mediums – oils and pastels - contemporaneously, the more intimate pastels found expression from the same source: the photographs captured during my second visit to the Grand Canyon in 2016. So, it is from photographs and not from on-site drawings that I turned to for inspiration. Although I was not deep within the walls of the canyon, the photographs captured the encompassing feeling of the canyon’s space, color and vastness in an indelible way. My intention in this series of pastels, which vary in size, was to capture the vast expanse of the canyon in an intimate form.