The Project
Eric Helvie’s exclusive release on Dropshop represents an entirely new body of work crafted over the past four years, centering around an oil painting of an intricate anatomical heart teeming with imagery from old-master etchings. This pivotal work, developed during his five-year collaboration with the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University, marks a departure for Helvie, showcasing a fresh visual language to collectors.
As a body of work, Helvie's Heart series holds a magnifying glass to specifically intimate moments in art history while also contemplating and questioning the visual language of contemporary art and our current collective relationships. The heart, as a repeated motif, serves as both a literal and metaphorical vessel, encouraging an exploration of how we perceive beauty, biology, and the narratives that shape our understanding of the world. The works in this drop pay homage to Dürer's Northern Renaissance etchings, carefully weaving his intricate details into the anatomy of the heart itself -a striking synthesis of anatomical precision and artistic homage that challenges and inspires critical dialogue on the nature of art and the human experience.
©Eric Helvie
The Works
The original painted, shaped panel, Heart (Big Heart), and the ensuing print edition, Little Heart, directly reference the works of Albrecht Dürer while laying bare a multitude of themes, as both the left and right ventricles of the heart house entire worlds replete with strange figures and distant landscapes. Helvie further explores the Renaissance master through eleven unique hand-embellished works, where the artist has elaborately reimagined the iconic flora and fauna watercolors of Albrecht Dürer atop the Little Heart edition, including the iconic Great Piece of Turf, Young Hare, Wing of a Blue Roller, and Little Owl.
Heart (Big Heart), 2021-2025
Medium: Oil on shaped wooden panel
Dimensions: 72 x 48 x 1.5 inches
Price: $50,000
Little Heart, 2025
Sheet Size: 30 x 22 inches
Regular Edition of 90
Medium: Screenprint in red
Price: $1,000 each, unframed
Unique Hand Embellished Prints
Medium: Screenprint in red with unique extensive hand-embellishment in oil
Price: $2,500-7,500 each, unframed
©Eric Helvie
The Artist
Eric Helvie (b. 1984, Portland, Oregon) spent most of his childhood in South Africa, where he studied painting at Creston College on the South Coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal. After moving to New York in 2009, Helvie has exhibited extensively, including selected solo and group exhibitions at Marianne Boesky Gallery, Hirschi & Adler, Natalie Kates Projects, Rivington Design House, the Highline Loft, and the SPRING/BREAK Art Show. He has also shown in multiple exhibitions at Massey Klein Gallery, most recently presenting his solo show No Friends in the spring of 2021.
Helvie's work addresses the act of seeing, obsessive looking, and optical ambiguity. Drawing from art history, social media, and film, his paintings function as props and icons-objects that glean meaning from their context and point to larger systems of understanding.
Helvie has been featured in numerous outlets and publications, including PBS, Artfile Magazine, Artefuse, Deviation Art Journal, VICE, Creators Connect, and The Unlimited Magazine.
©Eric Helvie
Kingsland Editions
Kingsland Editions is a fine art screen printing and publishing studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, founded by artist and collaborative printmaker Sara Gates. Established in 2006 as a high-end commercial print studio, Kingsland Editions continues to offer contract printing services while expanding into experimental and collaborative publishing projects. The studio works closely with contemporary artists to produce original, limited edition prints and multiples. Each edition is hand-printed using a wide range of innovative techniques. Runs are small, signed and numbered by the artist, and never reprinted once sold out.
Kingsland Editions is a full service screen printing studio with in-house facilities for large scale fine art printing, textile and yardage printing, and a dedicated ceramic studio equipped with a kiln. The studio supports artists in experimenting with materials and expanding their printmaking approaches. In addition to publishing new editions, Kingsland Editions hosts exhibitions, events, classes, and performances, using its space as a hub for experimentation and creative exchange.
©Phillips Auctioneers LLC
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