About

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.