My name is Leonie van der Helm (1973). I am a contemporary visual artist, based in Leiden, The Netherlands. In 2024 I graduated with honors from the Photo Academy Amsterdam with my installation Naked with the Truth.
As a lens-based visual artist, I explore the human body, and in particular the female body, as a carrier of personal and collective traumas. My work originates from photographic images of the female nude in uncomfortable or vulnerable positions. This body language serves as a visual starting point for me to depict psychological tensions and layered inner worlds.
In my practice, photography is not an endpoint, but a beginning. After printing, the image undergoes a process of destruction and transformation. I paint, tear, sand, fold, cut, or distort the images, and sometimes add materials. Through these interventions, I disrupt the integrity of the photographic image. I break it, only to (partially) restore it afterwards. The traces of these action, the scars, remain visible. A new image emerges, in which the physical process of damage and repair becomes a metaphor for the human experience.
“The essence of trauma is that it overwhelms the brain’s ability to cope with reality. Trauma is not just an event that took place some time in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.” (Bessel van der Kolk in: The body keeps the score.)