Welcome
I’m so glad you’ve found your way here. I’m Helen Otway, an artist based in the beautiful Northern Rivers of Australia. My work draws inspiration from the rhythms of nature — the shifting light, quiet coastlines, and the traces of human presence within the landscape.
Here you can explore my latest paintings and textile works, discover what’s currently on exhibition, and find out where my art is available — both through galleries and directly from my studio.
You can view selected artworks via the drop down menu to reveal each series:If These Walls Could Talk, Silva Luna, Forest Glow, Tidal Shift, Sacred Rocks, Minis & Postcard Paintings, Tweed Valley Series. And you can learn more about my work at Byron School of Art 2024-2026 including available works.
If you’d like to purchase a piece, reach out to me directly or via the galleries. I always love hearing from collectors, curators, and those who feel a connection to my work. I am happy to work with clients or interior designers to create one of kind commissions.
Thank you for visiting — I hope you find something here that reflects your own sense of place and stillness.
Helen xx
Here you can explore my latest paintings and textile works, discover what’s currently on exhibition, and find out where my art is available — both through galleries and directly from my studio.
You can view selected artworks via the drop down menu to reveal each series:If These Walls Could Talk, Silva Luna, Forest Glow, Tidal Shift, Sacred Rocks, Minis & Postcard Paintings, Tweed Valley Series. And you can learn more about my work at Byron School of Art 2024-2026 including available works.
If you’d like to purchase a piece, reach out to me directly or via the galleries. I always love hearing from collectors, curators, and those who feel a connection to my work. I am happy to work with clients or interior designers to create one of kind commissions.
Thank you for visiting — I hope you find something here that reflects your own sense of place and stillness.
Helen xx
WHAT'S ON NOW...
Places We Inhabit - Empire Revival, Murwillumbah - 5 March - mid April
|
We move through landscapes every day — forests, rivers, shorelines, streets — often without noticing how deeply they are noticing us.
The places we inhabit shape the way we breathe, the way we pause, the way we hold ourselves in the world. Over time, they become part of our inner weather: a remembered light, a familiar horizon, the hush of water at the edge of thought. This body of work moves between forest glow, tidal shift, sacred stone and rivered land. These are not depictions of place as scenery, but quiet encounters with presence — moments where land and water become mirrors for feeling, memory, and states of being. Each painting holds a question rather than an answer: What does this place ask of you? What does it offer? You are invited to wander slowly through these works, to linger, to let the surfaces and rhythms speak to something beneath language. Perhaps you will recognise a landscape you’ve known. Perhaps you will feel the echo of a place you carry but cannot name. “We do not only inhabit places; places inhabit us.” — (adapted from Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space) Places We Inhabit is an invitation to step inside these painted environments, and to notice — gently, without urgency — the subtle ways place shapes who we are, and who we are becoming. |
Silva Luna - Greenhouse Interiors - online and in gallery
On show with Greenhouse Interiors. You can shop online at greenhouseinteriors.com.au/collections/helen-otway-artworks
You can read more about these works and find more pieces from this series at Silva Luna
You can read more about these works and find more pieces from this series at Silva Luna
COMING UP...
Prelude - Australian Galleries - March 31 - April 18 2026
|
HELEN OTWAY / Olley's Corner / Olley's Chair /
Oil on board / Oak frame / 28x28cm
|
RECENT EVENTS...
Artist Residency - Tweed Regional Gallery - 8 - 22 December
Due to the passing of my mother, this opportunity unfortunately needed to be postponed.
Thank you to the Tweed Regional Gallery for their understanding.
Helen xx
Thank you to the Tweed Regional Gallery for their understanding.
Helen xx
Portraits Group Exhibition - Station Street Co-Op
Still, I Gaze - A self-portrait, a quiet act of contemplation. A moment where the self is neither performing nor retreating, but simply being. The face, not an idealized image, but a site of lived experience — vulnerable, thoughtful and unguarded. This small painting sits within my wider practice, where stillness, memory and emotional interiority are used to soften the noise of the world.
Original artwork by series ...
You can view selected works by series. To enquire about any of the artwork, just send through an email at [email protected] . Please note that some works are exclusive to galleries.