Swedish-born Helena Hernmarck received her education in art and weaving at the Handarbetets Vänner and the Konstfackskolan in Stockholm. Following some early artistic success in Sweden, she moved to Montreal in 1964, and from there to London, New York, and finally Connecticut. In 1984, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
In Montreal, Hernmarck developed her preference for weaving on a large scale and honed her unique approach to imagery, which often involved photorealistic renderings of works on paper and photographs. It was also in this early phase of her career that she focused her energies on cultivating corporate clients because they were the ones, she reasoned, who would be interested in and able to purchase the monumental textiles she wanted to weave.
Hernmarck’s site-specific commissions continued to grow throughout her long career, with a recent commission completed just a few years ago for the Hudson Yards development in New York. Up & Down and Up & Down Triptych were originally commissioned for the staff lounge at Pepsi-Cola World Beverages in Somers, New York. The designs for these textiles were drawn from watercolor paintings created by Hernmarck, while Up & Down incorporates the following phrases from a poem by the nineteenth-century Japanese writer Tachibana Akemi:
It is a pleasure
When, after a hundred days
Of twisting my words
Without success, suddenly
A poem turns out nicely
It is a pleasure
When, spreading out some paper,
I take a brush in hand
And write far more skillfully
Than I could have expected.
Nicole LaBouff
2024