Installation view of LOOKING UP, Helaine Blumenfeld’s exhibition at Canary Wharf 2020. Photo © Sean Pollock
Helaine Blumenfeld OBE is best known for her large-scale public sculptures whose undulating, ethereal forms evoke a sense of fragility and movement, transforming the environments into which they are placed. Following her recent exhibition at Canary Wharf, where several of her works are permanently installed, Digital & Art Editor Millie Walton speaks to the artist about working intuitively, the importance of touch and how public art brings people together
LUX: What’s your creative process like" Do you follow a routine, or need a particular atmosphere to create"

Helaine Blumenfeld: I think I have quite an unusual creative process which has changed in a few ways over the years, but essentially, it has always been a process of trying to coordinate what I am feeling and thinking with what I am doing with my hands. That has taken a very long time. Now, when I go into the studio, I am able to disconnect from everything that is going on around me. Francis Bacon used to say that to release that [creative] energy he would either need to be drugged or drunk or both, to allow him to enter into a kind of trance state. I can go into that state, happily, without drugs. For me, it is a state of being. I go into the studio, close the door, and I am there. Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine
I don’t really look at the work whilst I am making. I take...