‘A Tribute To Helen Keller’ Painting which depicts the whole life history of Helen Keller

ArtD’Hope Foundation in association with Palette People conducted a theme-based art activity. We have created a painting tribute to Helen Keller, as she is known to be the advocate of the blind and deaf. We have named this painting “The Advocate – A Tribute to Helen Keller”.

Why Helen Keller?

Helen Keller was a blind and deaf author, political activist, and lecturer who received critical acclaim for her achievements throughout her career. Helen graduated from Radcliffe when she was 24, in 1904 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller in 1918 made a movie in Hollywood, “Deliverance”. Helen became friends with famous people in the world such as the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell and the author Mark Twain. She met with every President of the United States from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. Helen was also a prolific author who wrote dozens of books and several articles in her lifetime.

Her first book was her autobiography, “The Story of My Life”. A staunch advocate for people with disabilities, Helen traveled to 39 countries in her lifetime, including England, Scotland, France, India, South Africa, Japan, and Korea. During her travels, she gave speeches and lectures and met with such illustrious figures as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Indian Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Japanese Emperor Hirohito.

Artography of Helen Keller

About The Painting

For the last 6 months, we were researching & collecting all possible information for this project. This painting’s center figure will be Helen Keller reading her book and visualizing a flower. The background of the painting will cover mostly all the major events in her life, personalities she has met, her writing style, bailie language, and important designs or objects from her life. The center flower and braille language will be in embossed style to make this painting sensible to a blind person.

This painting will be a collective work of a group of artists under the art direction of Sumesh K Shanmugan & advice from Ameen Khaleel. The artist team consists of artists like Anoop MV, George Soni, AS Mathew, etc. The main figure will be in color but the background will be in shades of grey and black. The painting size is 10 feet * 7 Feet stretched canvas using the mixed medium.

Basic images and important life events have been portrayed as the pencil sketch for creating the outline structure of the painting. We will be starting the work of the main painting on 23rd May 2016, from ‘IF Gallery’, Jew street, Kochi. Basic pencil sketches will be showcased there and live painting will go on and the gallery will be open to invited people to watch the work of art. We will submit this painting as a tribute to Helen Keller on Hellen Keller Day 27th June 2016. Printed copies of the painting in different sizes will be available for sale through our website and other galleries all over India.

The amount raised will be used for helping blind people. We have discussed this with the blind schools of Kerala. The amount raised will be used for buying study material & laptops for blind students and helping people with curable eye disease through different eye hospitals across South India.