Helena Schepens

Silversmith

©Lotte Van Boxem

©Helena Schepens

©Marie Dries

A meditation on silver

Helena's silverwork draws on themes of transparency, shadow and light
She specialises in raising and working the surface by drilling patterns
She feels her passion and love for silver is reflected in her works

Helena Schepens discovered her passion for metalwork during a course at secondary school. “I loved the repetitive action of hammering, and how I felt the shape developing under my hands.” She later studied jewellery and silversmithing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp before taking a master’s at the Royal College of Art in London. “In my objects, I create a structure that reveals the image and its shadow on the wall or on the underlying surface, as two equal principles,” she says. “Through this idea, as well as through the balance between the massive and openworked parts, I try to emphasise the underlying connection between two opposite concepts.”

Interview

©Linda Corstjens

Why did you want to be a silversmith?: I always loved the process of making things with my own hands from beginning to end, and the meditative effect this has on my mind. My choice was between becoming a pianist or a silversmith. I chose craft, but I still love to get inspiration from music.
What features characterise your work?: I love to work with structures, textures and sometimes pagination. I like the play between matt and shiny parts, the contrast between open and closed areas. My bowls are made using traditional techniques such as raising, sawing and drilling, but applied in a modern way.
What inspires your work?: I translate the breathing and transient beauty of nature into fragile, transparent objects in which patterns of leaves, branches and diatoms appear. At the very start, I found out that my free jewellery works had a monumental, architectural character.
What do you love most about life as a silversmith?: The repetitive act of raising, drilling and sawing gives me mental peace: it has a healing, calming and meditative effect on me. Concentrating on the thing I am doing makes me forget about the rest of the world and enjoy being in a state of “timelessness”.

Helena Schepens is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2007