Meet Helon Conning

Photograph credit: Angela Wilkinson
www.angelawilkinsonphotography

St Helens Borough Council Arts Service, in partnership with the Cultural Department at the City of Stuttgart's Council and GEDOK Women Artists' Studios/Cultural Centre, is pleased to announce that Helon Conning has been selected as the artist in residency at GEDOK Stuttgart. 

St Helens, twinned with Stuttgart, has a long history of collaborations including previous artist exchange projects between GEDOK and St Helens.

Following an open call open to St Helens based women artists earlier this year, GEDOK selected Helon to spend June and July 2025 at GEDOK, working from a live/work studio.
 

About

Helon Conning is a cross-disciplinary Expressionist whose practice is rooted in instinct, spontaneity, and the raw energy of process.

At the heart of her practice is a desire to communicate through the universal language of art. Helon aims to dismantle the political of being human and return to a shared understanding: that we are all surviving together on this planet, in space and time.  Reflecting on the nowness of our experiences and the cosmic randomness of our existence.

Helon views the world as a collaborative and immersive installation, where creativity serves as a tool for communication, discovery, transformation, and healing - believing that we are all artists transforming space into a living, breathing canvas.

Alongside her expressive practice, Helon studies traditional observational drawing to ground and enhance her insight when embracing automatism and gestural mark-making.

As a facilitator, she empowers others to reconnect with their innate creative instincts through improvisation and play - offering an open-ended invitation to experience freedom, presence, and embodiment through the uniqueness of our imaginations and sensations of existence.

Helon states "I'm overjoyed, overwhelmed, and overexcited to have been awarded a two-month residency at GEDOK Studio House and Cultural Centre in Stuttgart.

This is a truly wonderful exchange to fully immerse myself in my expressive practice. I bring with me a St Helens artist perspective, which I hope will enrich the residency, challenge assumptions, and spark new conversations.

I look forward to collaborating with fellow GEDOK Artists in visual arts, performance, writing, music, and more.

Having dedicated time and space to explore my artistic ponderings is an unbelievably rare opportunity to soothe my brain.  I'm especially excited to embrace new cultural perspectives, feed my senses with the sights and sounds of Stuttgart, and find common connections with St Helens. Here's to creative exchange, transformation, and the power of art to connect us all.

GEDOK aligns deeply with my own practice and philosophical approach, emphasising authenticity, inner truth, and the artist's subjective experience.

I can't wait to see what unfolds and I am greatly looking forward to sharing my awesome experiences with you"

View Helon's work on www.helonconning.com or instagram @helon_conning 

This opportunity is supported using public funding by Arts Council England and the City of Stuttgart Council with developmental support from St Helens Borough Council and GEDOK. 

St Helens Artist / Creative industries Database 

If you are a St Helens based creative and did not receive this opportunity via an email from St Helens Borough Council Creative Industries Database, please consider joining this database so that we can keep you up to date with future opportunities. 

You can read more and sign up for the database at the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/2Evb0pvdtW