DAD/CRASH

'DAD/CRASH' Film installation: mixed media 30x30x30cm
09.30 mins

Untitled I (green girl) -Crash 1-elmet Nude Series by Richard Hellis
Acrylic on MDF kitchen counter surface
113x60cm

Untitled II (girl with black string thong on leather sofa) ·Crash Helmet Nude Series by Richard Hellis
Acrylic on MDF with indented corners
61 x 97 cm

Untitled Ill (girl with denim jeails) -Crash Helmet Nude Series by Richard Hellis
Acrylic on MDF
89x59cm

Untitled IV (maroon shorts anj newspaper clippings) -Crash Helmet Nude Series by Richard Hellis
Mixed media - oil and newspaper clippings on canvas board
46x36cm

'DAD/CRASH' as featured in the Central Saint Martins Degree Show. The film revolves around shame and embarrassment within the context of my father’s paintings, in which I am using models to re-stage a filmic version of the paintings. The paintings are by my father and were completed in the early to mid-2000s. The paintings are of nude or topless women in varying poses and attire, wearing gloss black crash helmets. For the installation, I have written a poetic narrative in which I talk about my relationship with my estranged father, in which I have had moments when walking on the streets of London if a man wearing crash helmet passing by on a motorbike might or might not be my father. I discuss these moments where I am seriously contemplating the identity of these men wearing crash helmets and compare this moment to paintings by my father in which he painted the nudes also wearing crash helmets, in which I also question the identity of the women in his paintings. The work explores my own psychological headspace in which I am exploring the anticipation involved when crossing paths with a parent within a large city and the uncanny feelings and emotions it conjures. The work also explores my father’s own sexual identity, my father who uses a motorcycle as his main mode of transportation, as the motorcycle is part of his career as a motorcycle courier. I am exploring my father’s work as an outsider artist as well as his sexual fantasies in which he imposes part of his identity – the crash helmet onto the nude women.


My installation involves a corner space in which I have hung the original paintings. With the installation I have installed a plinth, which has a crash helmet suspending from the ceiling. With this installation I am experimenting with Ocular Rift style technology for the first time, in which I have fitted an Android phone and Google cardboard device within the helmet. The idea is that the viewer literally steps into my headspace as soon as they put the crash helmet on. In which they can embody this surreal reality and connection of ideas that exist inside my head.