Alex Helfgott

Print (MA)

10040257@network.rca.ac.uk

REALMS, 2024, 153 x 95 cm This composition comprises 35 hand-rolled mono prints. The mark-making was achieved by applying varied pressure and utilising textures from different surfaces. This piece emphasizes the power and beauty of mark-making and abstraction.

STACKING, 2024, 201 X 461 cm This work features 40 cropped lithographs, set within a custom-designed birch plywood CNC frame. It delves into image abstraction through techniques such as color manipulation, cropping, reduction, and shape.

VISIBILITY CUTOUT, 2024, 60 X 85 cm. This CMYK screen print, created without the black or yellow layers, incorporates laser-cut sections for added dimension. The image was crafted using a high-visibility safety vest placed in a plastic wallet on a photocopy machine. I’ve been reflecting on my identity and how it often isn’t immediately visible or obvious.

GB, 2023, 50 X 40 cm. Photo-Lithography and Screen print This print is a collage featuring a photo of my Grandpa Ben Helfgott competing in the 1956 Olympic Games, combined with scanned offcuts from a personal print I created. Although I chose not to share the original print, I used the paper as a symbolic representation of its significance to me.

About

Alex Helfgott, a London-born artist and printmaker with a practice that is both figurative and abstract . She weaves various printmaking techniques into her creative process, creating works that range from prints of archival, reportage-style imagery to more immediate, expressive pieces achieved through varying pressures on different surfaces. Her art delves into the beauty of abstraction, probing how it can serve as both an escape and a shield from reality. A central theme in her work is the transformation of difficult/personal imagery into abstract forms, questioning what it means to embrace abstraction as a response to challenging content.

A significant inspiration in Alex’s work is her grandfather Ben Helfgott, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. He was liberated from the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1945 and nine years later made his Olympic Debut at the 1956 Games in Melbourne participating for Great Britain. His legacy is often represented in her art through archival images, which she manipulates using techniques like reduction, cropping, and colour alteration. This process transforms the original imagery, maintaining its essence while placing it in a new context, prompting viewers to reconsider the nature of the images.

Alex frequently incorporates curved edges into her prints, adding a three-dimensional aspect to her work. This approach fosters an interesting interplay between the 2D and 3D realms.

Alex completed her undergraduate at Parsons School of Design, New York with a BFA in Fine Art in 2022. Alex is on track to complete her Masters in Print at the Royal College of Art , London in 2024.

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