Helena Kotnik is a contemporary artist whose practice unfolds at the intersection of painting, psychology, and lived experience. Educated in Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona and the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, Kotnik’s artistic journey has been shaped by rigorous academic training alongside extensive professional engagement within museums and galleries. Having worked as a museum guide, art mediator, and gallery intern in Barcelona, she developed a deep sensitivity to how artworks communicate meaning, emotion, and memory to diverse audiences. Today, alongside her studio practice, she continues this dialogue as an art teacher, guiding others through creative processes that mirror her own commitment to exploration and reflection.
At the core of Kotnik’s work lies a sustained investigation into personal narratives, psychological structures, and the capacity of art to process internal conflict. While painting remains her primary medium, her practice is deliberately expansive. She moves fluidly between collage, ceramics, wood, textile, and performance, allowing each material to speak according to the conceptual demands of the work. In recent years, she has also begun producing tapestries using recycled materials, further extending her interest in transformation, both material and emotional, and the act of reassembling fragments into renewed forms.
Developing a Distinct Visual Language
Kotnik’s current artistic language is the result of years of experimentation across different pictorial approaches. Rather than adhering to a fixed style early on, she allowed herself time to explore multiple visual vocabularies, gradually distilling the elements that resonated most authentically with her conceptual aims. This process has led to a distinctive aesthetic marked by layering, hybridity, and a deliberate tension between control and spontaneity.
Her paintings often combine figurative elements with symbolic structures, integrating text, found imagery, and expressive mark-making. The surface of the work becomes a site of accumulation, where memories, thoughts, and emotions coexist rather than resolve neatly. This layered approach reflects Kotnik’s broader interest in the complexity of human experience, particularly in relation to vulnerability, self-perception, and psychological resilience.
Art as a Psychological Framework
A defining characteristic of Kotnik’s practice is her engagement with psychological theory as both subject matter and structural guide. Rather than illustrating concepts literally, she translates them into visual and material experiences. Her work often draws from academic frameworks, personal encounters, and cultural references, weaving them together into compositions that invite contemplation rather than didactic interpretation.
This approach is particularly evident in her painting titled “One day Paul Pintrich said to me that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t believe him.” The work exemplifies her ability to transform abstract theory and personal memory into a compelling visual narrative that is both intimate and universally resonant.
“One day Paul Pintrich said to me that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t believe him.”
Created using collage, gouache, ink, marker pen, coloured pencils, and watercolour, this mixed-media painting operates on multiple conceptual and emotional levels. The title itself immediately establishes a confrontational yet defiant tone, suggesting an encounter with authority, judgment, and self-doubt, followed by an act of refusal.
The work is conceptually anchored in Judith Herman’s three-stage theory of trauma recovery: safety and stabilisation, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection and integration. Rather than presenting these stages sequentially, Kotnik allows them to coexist within the composition, reflecting the non-linear nature of healing. Layers overlap, interrupt, and support one another, mirroring the way traumatic experiences and recovery processes are often experienced simultaneously rather than as a clean progression.
Central to the piece is the figure of Paul R. Pintrich, the influential American educational psychologist known for his research on motivation and self-regulated learning. By invoking Pintrich, Kotnik introduces a figure associated with assessment, performance, and academic authority. However, she reframes this authority through a deeply personal lens, transforming it into a symbolic representation of internalised judgment and external expectations.
The declaration “I didn’t believe him” becomes an act of resistance. It signals a moment of reclaiming agency, where imposed narratives of inadequacy are rejected. In this sense, the painting does not merely address trauma. It actively enacts recovery through visual defiance and reconstruction.
Materiality and Meaning
The choice of materials in this work is significant. Collage allows Kotnik to physically assemble and reassemble fragments, echoing the psychological act of rebuilding a sense of self. Gouache and watercolour introduce fluidity and vulnerability, while ink and marker pen assert clarity and permanence. Coloured pencils add an intimate, diaristic quality, suggesting reflection and introspection.
This interplay between fragile and assertive materials reinforces the conceptual tension at the heart of the painting. It balances exposure and strength, memory and reinterpretation. Nothing is entirely erased. Instead, elements are layered, negotiated, and integrated, much like the recovery process itself.
Beyond Painting: Expanding the Practice
While painting remains central to Kotnik’s work, her engagement with ceramics, wood, and recycled textile tapestries demonstrates a growing interest in tactility and sustainability. These materials introduce time, labor, and physical engagement into her practice, expanding the conversation beyond the image to include process and transformation.
Her use of recycled materials in recent tapestries underscores a commitment to reusing what has been discarded, aligning materially with her conceptual focus on recovery, repair, and renewal. Performance also plays a role in her broader practice, allowing the body itself to become a site of inquiry and expression.
A Practice Rooted in Reflection and Teaching
As an art teacher, Kotnik occupies a dual role: practitioner and guide. This position reinforces her sensitivity to learning processes, motivation, and self-belief, themes that subtly echo through her work. Teaching does not function as a parallel career but as an extension of her artistic inquiry, reinforcing her interest in how individuals construct meaning, confidence, and resilience through creative engagement.
Conclusion
Helena Kotnik’s work stands as a thoughtful and emotionally resonant exploration of psychology, materiality, and personal agency. Through painting and expanded media, she constructs visual spaces where theory and experience intersect, and where recovery is not portrayed as resolution but as an ongoing act of integration. Her practice invites viewers to reflect on their own narratives of judgment, belief, and resistance, offering art not as an answer, but as a companion in the process of understanding and becoming.
