Bruce Helander was born in 1947. He received his MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Art and Design in 1972.
His collage compositions feature iconic imagery: he often collages images of models, housewives, domestic scenes, vintage advertisements and iconic cartoons, mostly taken from U.S. periodicals of the late 1930’s and 40’s. He boldly reassembles these fragments onto canvas, recreates them and then embellishes the entire surface with paint to reveal new formations. Close examination of individual pieces can yield tiny lines of text that reveal image sources, such as Esquire magazine articles. However, his work is best viewed at a contemplative distance where collaged aspects are barely detectable and appear to blend into gestural conglomerations, akin to paintings by Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning.
Bruce Helander is the former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of the Rhode Island School of Art and Design and a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts.
