Helen Klebesadel

"My visual concerns run the gamut from careful study to poetic, symbolic and sometimes political representations of nature and human nature."

Helen R. Klebesadel is best known for her environmental and women-centered watercolors. Her paintings push the traditional boundaries of the medium in scale, content, and technique. Her watercolors range in size from the intimate to the monumental.

Klebesadel creates paintings that are transparent watercolors on paper. She starts with detailed drawings and develops the images with layer upon layer of color washes and dry brush technique mixed with occasional areas of wet-into-wet spontaneity.

Helen Klebesadel earned her BS and MFA in art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lecturing about and teaching art in colleges and workshops for two decades, she continues to learn from her art experiences and her students.

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Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Watercolor Wisconsin, Racine Art Museum, Racine Art Museum, 2022
Earth Wind Fire Water and Sky: Art Making in A Time of Climate , Cedarburg Art Museum, 2023
Wisconsin Biennial, Museum of Wisconsin Art, 2022
Women Under Siege, Ceres Gallery, New York City, NY, 2017
Kaohsiung International Women?s Art Exhibition, Taiwan Kaohsiung Women?s Center, Taipei, Taiwan, 2015-2016
Collections
Collection, Ellen & Peter Johnson HospiceCare, Madison, WI, 2007
Collection, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, 2005
Collection, American Council on Education (ACE), , Washington D.C., 1998
Twelve Murals, Central Wisconsin Center, Madison, WI, 1980
Watercolor Wisconsin (Purchase Award 2015), Racine Art Museum, Racine. WI, 2015