Helen Mirkil maintains a studio in Lansdale, PA. Her education includes a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Sculpture), as well as an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy (Painting). Ms. Mirkil also attended Barnstone Studios in Coplay, PA, pursuing further studies in composition and design.
In 1998 at the Walter Wickiser Gallery in NYC, Mirkil had a solo exhibition of her expressionist landscapes. In 1999 she received the six-week Valerie Lamb Smith Painting Residency from the Pennsylvania Academy. In 2002-03, Mirkil’s large figurative paintings were in a solo show at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. This exhibition traveled to the University of Mary Washington Galleries, Fredericksburg, VA.
Her painting “Dream Dance” was featured in the “Director’s Choice”exhibition at the new Pfeiffer Wing at the Berman Museum of Art. In 2011, a solo exhibition of Mirkil’s narrative paintings, entitled “Hidden Stories,” took place at Montgomery County Community College. Also in 2011, her work was included in “Ecstatic Landscape,” curated by Miriam Seidel. During the summers of 2009 & 2013, Mirkil’s work was juried into the National Midyear Exhibition at The Butler Institute of American Art.
Mirkil has taught at Ursinus College, the Wayne Art Center, and also in Wales, U.K. (during a sculpture/teaching fellowship there). Helen Mirkil has served as Visiting Artist and lecturer at Chatham Hall, in VA; at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, VA; and at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, NC.
Mirkil worked as assistant to the director of the Turak Gallery in Philadelphia. From 1989-93 she was Coordinator of Zone One Artists’ Cooperative in the Second St. Arts Building, Old City. As guest curator at the Berman Museum of Art, she conceived “In Her Voice: Self Portraits by Women,” a project which included artists of local, national, and international reputation. Her exhibition, “Seeking the Real,” featured five artists and took place at the Hicks Art Center at Bucks County Community College. Both exhibitions were reviewed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Ms. Mirkil’s project, “The Expressionist Gesture,” was in the Berman Museum of Art and included artists from the Philadelphia area and Virginia.
Images of her paintings have been included in books published by Running Press, including Dream Symbols and Quotable Women. And in September of 2007, an artist’s profile appeared in the Montgomery County Town and Country Magazine entitled “Helen Mirkil”. In June/July of 2011, two shows of her work were reviewed, with articles both in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Broad Street Review. In 2013 Mirkil’s book, Sower on the Cliffs, Poems and Drawings, was published by BookArts Press.
Mirkil’s work is represented at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, the Bryn Mawr College Library Collection, The James A. Michener Art Museum, the Villanova University Art Collection, the University of Mary Washington Galleries in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the Monmouth Comprehensive School in Wales, U.K., the Teaching Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Woodmere Art Museum.
Ms. Mirkil had a very successful major solo exhibit in 2014, “ Passionate Gesture” and a two person exhibit, “Soaring”, in 2015 with husband Brian H. Peterson, at Santa Bannon/Fine Art Gallery where both artists are represented.
A virtual tour of the installation is available for viewing at http://sky.easypano.com/virtual-tour/Santa-Bannon-Fine-Art-29942.html .
For more information, to purchase, or exhibit work please contact info@santafineart.com
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