One Hundred Views of Kilauea Volcano: Volume Two: 51-100

One Hundred Views of Kilauea Volcano- Volume Two: 51 - 100 Paintings by Helen Chellin Helen takes her inspiration from her own observations and from images that scientists record in the field. She discovers the common ground where the concerns of scientist and artist overlap. Both are mindful of color, scale, pattern, and intensity. Both want to record the forces that shaped the island. Helen is fascinated with connections-between culture and volcanoes and the people who strive to understand them. Her paintings rarely depict only volcanic activity, but include scientists and their instruments, birds, the trace of an earthquake, houses, historical figures, and onlookers. Her paintings tell stories. The photographs that inspire Helen record a single moment, but in her paintings time is fluid, with scenes from Kilauea’s past blending with the present. Her paintings flow from the concrete to the abstract, conveying the mystery of this earth, which the hard facts of science can never dispel. Helen has chosen to paint 100 views of Kilauea Volcano in honor of one of her mentor artists–Hokusai. Hokusai created the famous work 100 Views of Mt. Fuji. He was known for being one of the first artists to combine landscape with scenes of people living and working on the flanks of a volcano.