Between Landscape and Abstraction
Between Light and Shape
Hovering between abstraction and representation, my paintings reflect a way of seeing that holds opposing states in tension: stillness and motion, openness and compression, structure and fluidity. I examine the interconnectedness of sky, land, sea and fog through geometry, space, light, and color. The paintings exist within this in-between space, where memory, geography, and perception converge.
Pacific Edge
Northern California’s light—its open skies and coastal fog drifting across the hills—carries a sense of elemental forces at work. The landscape is shaped by the ongoing tension between shifting tectonic plates and the winds and currents of the Pacific Ocean. My paintings are built around atmosphere as a material—fog, coastal light, and deep blues that hold space rather than describe it.
Break 20" x 20" Acrylic on Birch Panel, 2026
Lift 30" x 30" Acrylic on Birch Panel 2026
Held Light 20" x 20" Acrylic on Birch Panel 2026
Between Memory and PLACE
Baltic Memories
Baltic Memory: The Sky I Carried, 5"x 6", Soft pastel and watercolor on watercolor paper, 2026
Baltic Memory: Between Gusts, 5.75"x 5.5", Soft Pastel and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper, 2026
Baltic Memory: The Sky Opened, 5.5"x 5.5, Soft Pastel and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper, 2026
Baltic Memory: As the Sky Fell, 4.75”x 4.75”, Acrylic and Soft Pastel on Oil Paper, 2026
Baltic Memory: The Weather Turned, 3.75”x 4.75”, Acrylic and Soft Pastel on Oil Paper, 2026
Self Portrait
9”x12”, Charcoal on Paper, 2025
About ME
Artist Statement
My paintings explore the space between landscape and abstraction, shaped by lived experiences across contrasting environments: Northern California’s wild and expansive terrain, the open skies of the German Baltic coast, and the layered urban fabric of East Berlin. Rather than depicting specific places, my paintings evoke shifting fields of atmosphere, gesture, and spatial ambiguity - they are drawn from the memory of how these landscapes feel.
The distinct light of Northern California, with its open skies and coastal fog moving across hillsides, informs a sense of elemental forces shaping the land. In contrast, the German Baltic coast introduces a quieter, more expansive register, where land, sea, and sky often dissolve into one another, suggesting both freedom and suspension. Berlin’s dense historic urban layering is reflected in layers of paint that are built up, eroded, and scraped back.
I approach landscape as a condition in flux rather than a fixed image, shaped by my experiences of growing up in East Germany, witnessing the fall of the Iron Curtain, and later migrating to the United States. Through cycles of layering, removal, and reworking, forms emerge and recede. Geometric traces, horizon-like divisions, and atmospheric fields appear and dissolve, suggesting a landscape that is simultaneously stable and unstable—continuously forming and reforming.
Hovering between abstraction and representation, my paintings reflect a way of seeing that holds opposing states in tension: stillness and motion, openness and compression, structure and fluidity. I examine the interconnectedness of sky, land, sea and fog through geometry, space, light, and color. The paintings exist within this in-between space, where memory, geography, and perception converge.
Artist Bio
Helena Roeber, a California-based painter, holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University (2001), with a minor in Studio Art, and completed a Certificate in Painting Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2026. Informed by landscapes of Northern California, the German Baltic coast, and Berlin, her paintings investigate the intersections of place, memory, structure, and atmospheric experience.