Helen Kerridge is a contemporary painter living in Hawke’s Bay.

Kerridge’s still life paintings are set in sparse environments, with a minimal grouping of subjects. Working to small, mid, and large scale in acrylic on canvas, her works exude a sense of stillness, contemplation, and a celebration of the beauty to be found in objects. 

Kerridge has long held an avid interest in the symbolism imbued within the paintings of the Old Dutch Master’s, and in this tradition, she infuses her photo-realism with objects capable of connecting with and transporting the viewer. Her utilitarian items ubiquitously resonate and remind us of our past: an old glass milk bottle, a Crown Lynn ceramic, enamelware our grandparents used – remnants of yesteryear painted with meticulous precision.

Throughout her painting career Kerridge has worked with a variety of themes and styles including Cubism, Impressionism, and landscape painting. In 2019 she attended the Summer Portrait School, at the Florence Charles Cecil Atelier in Italy, where she spent time studying portraiture in the ‘sight size’ technique of John Singer Sargent. Of the many areas she has delved into, still life continues to resonate and return to her oeuvre.

Kerridge has been working as an artist, photographic retoucher, illustrator, and arts tutor for over forty years. She began her career as a teenager at a professional photographic printing laboratory in Auckland, of a time pre-computers and Photoshop, where seamless artwork was manually implemented to alter images. Her early career took her to America where she specialised in retouching portrait photographs for exhibitions. The importance of flawlessly altering prints later led to the development of her photo-realism.

Kerridge’s works are held in both private and public collections throughout New Zealand.