At this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House (open until 7:30 tomorrow night; run over to 106 East 71st Street while you still can!), I was most enchanted by artist Nina Helms’s bas-relief wall murals. Helms creates what she calls her “sculpt du fleur” in her studio (or rather, at her dining-room table) in Westbury, on Long Island. She invited me to watch her time-consuming process of rolling, sculpting, and casting each intricate design. Photograph by Wendy Goodman
The incredible end result of all that work: This is one of Helms’s installations at Kips Bay, a Wedgwood-like bas-relief applied to a curved wall. Courtesy of Nina Helms
This three-dimensional flower bud gives such an abstract decorative flourish to a very simple white wall and door frame.Courtesy of Nina Helms
Helms doesn’t work only in white; she also uses bright, lush colors as illustrated in these raised sculptures that look like glass on a Lucite screen. Courtesy of Nina Helms
