Linda Helmick
(she/her)
Is an Artist, Researcher, and Associate Teaching Professor of Art Education at the University of Missouri. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, Art Education at Indiana University, an M.A. in Painting from the University of Indianapolis, and a BFA in Painting from the Herron School of Art and Design.
Helmick’s creative and scholarly work resides at the intersection of visual art, critical theory, and arts-based research. Grounded in the belief that creative expression is a basic human right, her work examines how art can support healing, critical consciousness, and community connection in educational and social contexts.
As a painter working in encaustic and mixed media, Helmick creates meditative, process-driven works that explore memory, place, and identity. Her studio practice informs her teaching and research, particularly in areas of trauma-informed pedagogy, therapeutic arts, and arts-based inquiry.
Artist Statement (cont.)
I create paintings that function as visual bridges between personal history, material process, and broader human experience. Working in encaustic and mixed media, I am particularly interested in layering, translucency, and the ways surfaces can hold traces of time, memory, and transformation. The slow, meditative nature of encaustic painting allows making to become a form of reflection and embodied thinking.
Across my work as an artist, teacher, and researcher, I explore how creative practice can foster meaning-making, healing, and critical awareness. My work is ultimately concerned with understanding what it means to be human and how art helps us make sense of our lives.