I am a live performance and multi-disciplinary artist with over a decade of professional experience, creating candid cultural experiences. This includes performing and showcasing my work in England and abroad.
I am a live performance and multi-disciplinary artist with over a decade of professional experience, creating candid cultural experiences. This includes performing and showcasing my work in England and abroad.
The performance works involve embodiment and participants engagement in water that use various techniques: somatics, bodywork and contact improvisation dance.
My background as a sculptor has changed, I have replaced traditional material with flesh and become aquatic live artist using water as my studio and stage.
I create relational and participatory live performances for and with diverse cross generational communities that also provides an outlet for my prenatal research.
My passion to engage with people in water originates from coming from Teplice, a spa city in Czechia. Since then I have continually been developing my aquatic performance skills and practiced bodywork, dance, diving, floating and swimming.
A key work that has informed my practice is Trimester, a series of works created in collaboration with Kye Wilson and Maurizio Mancioli, that includes live underwater performances, video installations, photographic prints and publications created in response to contemporary issues concerned with foetus development and experiences.
My achievements include:
- Receiving a variety of commissions and awards including numerous grants from Arts Council England; ‘Best Graduate Prize’, Glynn Vivian Art and participating in São Paulo Art Biennial.
- Live performances, site-specific, participatory and multi-disciplinary projects at The Link Gallery; Portsmouth/Winchester Cathedral; APT Gallery (London); Galerie ITC (Czechia).
- Collaborations with sound artist, poets and filmmakers.
- Graduating with an MA in Fine Art from Winchester School of Art (2011).
Personal statement
Helena Eflerová is an award winning and dedicated professional artist, with over sixteen years’ experience in the visual art. She has a proven track record of success, which includes performance, video and installation art productions. She has created projects for diverse intergenerational and marginalised communities in UK and abroad. Working on freelance bases, she is looking for the right opportunity to bring her expertise to new commission and research performance in water for health and wellbeing.
Key Skills
· Excellent research skills.
· Outstanding performance and audience interface skills.
· Strong leadership and the ability to motivate her team.
· Experienced leader of workshops, talks, seminars, tutorials, supervisions.
· Expert knowledge of the Conceptual Art, Fine Art, Video Art and Live Art.
· Skilled in durational and site-specific performance, physical performance, Butoh, Contact Improvisation dance.
· Highly specialised in Aquatic Bodywork therapy and Aquatic Contact Improvisation dance.
Employment History
Helena Eflerová Visual Artist and Facilitator, Founder of HE AQUATICS Bournemouth
(January 2007 – to date)
Key results and responsibilities:
· Co-Director of award winning artist collective Wilson-Eflerová.
· Numerous performance productions over a decade, given both nationally and internationally.
· Exhibited work in universities, art galleries, off-site gallery, heritage and site-specific environments.
· Successful funding over £150k grants achieved to date for the arts applications.
· Obtained in kind funding from a range of local sources.
· Managed the commissions, events, exhibitions, projects, and workshops in the South East/West.
· Provided excellent creative environment with wide range of communities and people of all ages.
· Pioneered Aquatic Contact Improvisation dance and Aquatic Bodywork in hydrotherapy pools.
· Built collaborations and partnership with cultural, social health care and academia industries.
· Attended numerous Contemporary Art and Dance shows to improve product knowledge, kept up-to-date in the industry and enhanced the brand image.
· Funding from Arts Council of England, the Grants for the Arts, Portsmouth Festivities, Portsmouth Historic Dockyards and Guildford Borough.
· Exhibited at Mottisfont Abbey, Winchester and Portsmouth Cathedrals, God’s House, Madatac, In-touch BICIF, APT Galley and John Hansard Gallery.
Education
University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art
(September 2006– August 2009)
Masters of Arts degree in Fine Art Sculpture.
University of Glamorgan, West Wales School of The Arts
(September 2003 – June 2006)
Bachelor of Arts Degree in a Fine Art Ceramics.
Professional membership, Awards, Collections and Prizes
Professional membership
a-n AIR (Artist interaction and representation).
Axisweb (a platform to support artists and profile their activities).
NSEAD (National Society for Education in Art and Design).
Main Awards
Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England: Ecclesia/Synagoga (2015); Embodied Vistas (2014); Faces project (2014); Anima/Animus (2013); Hunter/Hunted (2012).
Collections
Embodied Vistas (photographic prints 1/24 limited edition), Gallery Muse, Petersfield.
Collection Trimester (photographic print on foam board).
Auction ART/Converters 2014; Studio1-1Gallery, London.
T-Land (photographic print on silk) Nelly Globe Gallery.
Annual Auction of Artwork, Stockport.
T-Land (two photographic prints), Jeni Williams, Auction of Artwork, Asylum Justice c/o YMCA, Swansea.
Prizes
Trimester (film), Kino Foundation – Awards for All, Portsmouth
Trimester, Diving museum, Gosport, best artwork of underwater exhibition
Prize Happy Days (film), Best Graduate Prize at the Glyn Vivian Gallery, Swansea
Publications
Angel:legnA Collective Memories, Helena Eflerova, October, 2017.
Lina Review, Helena Eflerova, 2017.
The Work of Helena Eflerová: The far away spirit, the creaturely now, Dr Rebecca Bailie, 2016.
Transformation, exhibition catalogue, Helena Eflerova 2016.
The Lunar Walk Anthology, Hugh Greasley, 2016.
The Journal of Writing and Creative Practice (JWCP) special edition: Place - based Arts, edited by Dr. Kate Aughterson and Dr. Jess Moriarty, 2016.
Embodied Vistas Anthology, Hugh Greasley, 2016.
Place, Space and Self: Site - Responsive Art in a Globalised World, Dr Jeni Williams, University of Wales: Trinity Saint David, 2015.
Understanding what Ecclesia/Synagoga Is, Stella Bahin, 2015.
The Space between Body and Place ‘Embodied Vistas’ by Kate Davey, 2014.
Embodied Vistas by Allan Taylor, 2014.
Faces by Graham Brown, 2014.
Entrapment of the o/Other, Aesthetica Art Prize 2014, 100 Contemporary Artists, 2014, Aesthetica Magazine Ltd 2014.
ANIMA/ANIMUS, The quest of WE for transformation: a slippage of selves in the spaces of time, Dr Jeni Williams, 2014.
Anima/Animus, 10 days Winchester Creative Collisions Broadsheet, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, 2013.
Animate/Inanimate: The Reanimated Ghosts of Anima/Animus by Allan Taylor, October 31, 2013.
Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology, 2014 Edi tion, Aesthetica Magazine, York, UK ISSN: 17589932.2013, 2013.
Trimester in Acquabox, Studies in the Maternal Volume 4, Issue 1, Birkbeck University of London, 2012.
Unsettled Entrapment of the Beautiful o/Other in Unified Spaces: a short essay on the conceptual works of Kye Wilson, Dr Trudy Barber FRAS FHEA, School of Creative Arts, Film and Media, University of Portsmouth, 2011.
The Liminal Zones of Helena Eflerová, critical essay by Simon Morley, 2009.
Trimester Live Performance and Video Installation, Helena Eflerová and Kye Wilson, 2008.
Artists leave their footprint on Forest: Installation artist Helena Eflerová, Sally Adams and Helena Tinker, Bournemouth Echo, 2007.
On the Edge: Margins and edges might be forgotten by most of us, but they’re far from being just blank spaces, Sarah Jane Downing, Big Issue, 2007.
Wooly art at Waterstone’s: exhibition artist Helena Eflerová, Kay Byrne, South Wales Evening Post, 2006.
Art that’s a bit out of the ordinary: Swansea Open 2006 Glyn Vivian Art Gallery, Kay Byrne, South Wales Evening Post, 2006.
The National Eisteddfod of Wales: Helena Eflerová’s Art Installation, Susie Wild, Platform Issue 10, Wales, 2006.
Art is Smart Carmarthen: Czech ceramicist and performance artist Helena Eflerová, Susie Wild, Buzz, 2006.
Venus: Helena Eflerová interviewed by Susie Wild, Platform Swansea, Wales, 2005.
