Helena Sanders (b. 1983 Austin TX, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam, NL and Vienna, AT. Her practice takes form as abstract painting and drawing, installations, writing, audio and live performance.

Throughout her work, she explores the possibilities in the materiality of color (organic and synthetic pigments, dyes, paints, etc) to narrate complex histories and presents of Place, notions of land stewardship, access, and environmental exploitation. She is particularly interested in sites of resource extraction such as ochre and coal mines, where folklore, science, death, desire and economics overlap in the creation of color.

If language limits how we are able to narrate our stories and history, then can color provide a tool through which we can sing ourselves back into the world?

Helena earned an MA in Artistic Research from the Royal Academy of Art, the Hague (2019) and a Bachelors of Science from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2005) with concentrations in painting and textiles.

Helena is also involved in the production of artist-run events and workshops, guest lecturing at art academies across the Netherlands including AKI Enschede and KABK the Hauge, and played accordion and sang in the music & performance collective Cold in Church, based in Amsterdam.