Helen Verhoeven

Helen Verhoeven's new body of work engages with the long tradition of artists depicting themselves in relation to their models, paying particular attention to how materials that both reveal and conceal have functioned within this history. Drawing on references from early modern painting to contemporary fashion, the works reflects on shifting ideas of visibility, intimacy, and display through the evolving depiction of underwear and lingerie. These garments become a lens through which to consider exposure and vulnerability, as well as sexualization and objectification, connecting to broader systems of gender roles, aesthetics, beauty ideals, ability, and commercial exchange. Rather than following a single narrative, the paintings explore how repetition, reflection, and transparency create different modes of looking, positioning, and exchange — between artist and subject, painter and “muse,” private and public space, and image and viewer. By staging varying degrees of exposure and opacity within her figures, Verhoeven examines the politics of visibility: what is worn, why it is worn, and how such choices signal power relations both within and beyond the painting. Through this open investigation of figure, material, and surface, the project considers how conventions of beauty, power, and representation continue to be negotiated today.