Sometimes, she would have 10,000 new followers a day, The spike in followers is thanks in part to the fashion photographer Nick Knight, who six months ago invited her to do a residency for his fashion film website, SHOWstudio. Story about a young dancer who slips on her first pair of shoes and can’t stop dancing until she eventually dies of exhaustion. She says she felt like the girl in “The Red Shoes,” a Hans Christian Andersen You see pictures of laborers with hard hats and hammers.) And so she painted. (Her handle of choice, Unskilled Worker, had been on her mind for years, since she is solely self-taught. She posted it on Instagram,Īt the suggestion of her son’s friend, and attracted 1,000 followers. Her first work - completed two years ago, after her cancer treatment - was of a little girl in a chocolate shop in Orvieto, Italy, during an annual trip with her family. The artist known as Unskilled Worker (who wishes to retain a certain level of anonymity) holds up her portrait of Mick Jagger, which sold within 10 minutes on Instagram via direct message from a fan in Antwerp. Her first child at 20, followed by three more, the idea faded. I couldn’t.” Right after she was expelled, the trouble began: “I started smoking spliffĪnd didn’t put it down until I was 39.” She took a job cutting hair near UCA Epsom University for the Creative Arts and discussed the possibility of enrolling with the lecturers she groomed. “The nuns told me to take it all off, but it looked so good. She says, adding that her school was a convent. “I was expelled at 15 for wearing bright pink moccasins and a bright pink mohair cardigan to school,” There’s one childhood memory that she thinks may have foreshadowed her decision to focus on fashion in her work. Today, she basks in her quick two-year rise from amateur painter to an Instagram sensation recently hired by Gucci to create portraits. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and first felt the urge to paint.
Helen downie download#
If you go onto her website here, you can download a special work Helen created of the Gucci Unskilled Worker Dreaming in high or low res format.Six years ago, Helen Downie - the 50-year-old, London-based artist better known as “Unskilled Worker” (who hopes to retain a certain amount of anonymity) - had been clean of drugs for 10 months when She was invited by the creative director to interpret his A/W15 collection and has since then created 35 works for a sponsored Gucci exhibition in Shanghai. That painting, which now hangs on the wall of Alessandro’s, was the turning point for her. She promptly ran upstairs to paint “Oh, to be a Boy!’. It was during this time she was inspired by Alessandro Michele‘s first Gucci menswear show where, “I wanted it all: the high neck ruffles, the deep red silk shirt”, she said. Her paintings of New York kids and young skinheads caught the attention of renowned photographer Nick Knight, who invited her to be part of a fashion website of his called SHOWstudio. Her first painting was of a girl standing outside a chocolate shop in Italy, which she disliked so much she tore it up, but luckily, she had taken a snap of it and at the insistence of her son’s friend, uploaded it to her Instagram account, called the unskilled worker, a handle referring to her lack of formal training. While recovering from cancer in 2013, Helen picked up a paintbrush again, something she hadn’t done for 33 years.
Helen Downie has become one of fashion’s favourite artists her faces with oversized eyes draw into the heart and soul of every person, capturing an intangible emotion.
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