Helen Mary Dunn

I was educated in Leek, North Staffordshire. Later, I attended Burslem Art School and Leicester Art College, now De Montfort University.

Most of the aesthetic influence in my early life came from my maternal grandfather who was a professional artist in the pottery industry. My family culture is one of the ‘Arts’ with my mother, brothers, cousins and daughter all involved in aspects of Art, Photography, Music and Acting. My uncle is an acclaimed playwright with RSC.

My career has evolved around knitwear design. In the early days, I worked with Hardy Amies and Byford developing men's knitwear ranges. I then progressed into full-time lecturing which has enabled me to interface with both higher education and the industry for fashion and knitwear design. I love working with students.

My own creative aspirations have always been to teach in Higher Education. Through the innovations that were embedded into my curriculum, I was awarded the accolade for teaching within my institution, Teacher Fellow. I have also recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. My professional life is the basis of my creative activities in design but this does not enable me to practice the personal drawing and life study that gave me so much inspiration in my early art school days.

Three years ago, I decided to start again from the beginning so I joined a Life Drawing class at Loughborough School of Art (now Loughborough University). This is the only evening class that has survived from the Art School culture, largely due to passionate dedication of the high quality students, models and Margot, our tutor.

Life drawing gives me great inner strength. It allows me to close out the world and helps me develop my skills in media and the understanding of the human form, which is not apparent when one is a practising educator in design. Much of my work has a decorative quality which is probably influenced by my knitwear/fashion/textiles background. I love subtle collage using tissue, beads, sequins and feathers.

I do not wish to sell any of my drawings at this time, but I welcome comments on my development (email helen@quorndon.com). I believe it is important to share my passion and I enjoy exhibiting with the Quorn local artists in their annual exhibitions. I am delighted to have my own web gallery and feel very privileged to participate in our Quorn Village Website.

Helen Mary Dunn's Gallery on the Quorn Village Website

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