​“I really like working with mixed media, although most often I end up with making my collages and sculptures into photographs.” ​​​
Photography gives me the opportunity to combine almost everything; photos of my objects, of my paintings, my notes, my scraps, and my memories. Although I create some of my work digitally, I love to see and feel the pictures printed large on nice cotton paper.

These pictures are from my latest series - Ella in the Garden. It’s a personal investigation with a clear emphasis on childhood, womanhood, play and memories. I never include images of men – or if I do I alter them to represent girls or women – the media is full enough of those already.
I want my pictures to be empowering, joyful and a bit mysterious - but also open ended so the audience can interact with them and add something of themselves. They don't need to "understand" me or my purpose. They should make the piece theirs – and enjoy. Using myself as a subject is rather new. At first I was reluctant, thinking I can't be that interesting to others - and that the personal aspect would shut people out. But now I am starting to see that it gives me a great deal of freedom, and that being personal can actually draw the viewer in. And it doesn't hurt to put yourself out there sometimes….
I think I just know when a picture is done. Sometimes I am a bit hasty though and realize the next day, or later, that it wasn't done at all. I need a bit of distance. When I eventually feel am done for real, then wild horses couldn't make me change a thing. It can take time to get to that point, but when I do then I don't really care what the audience thinks.

I look at images all the time, every day. I collect what I like - it can be from all kinds of sources: the internet, art shows, advertisements, the streets, a person's dress, a pattern, a shadow, a colour combination, a glimpse...I take photos of everything and save them. Then I look at them again…and again.

I am always making art. Even when I eat. It is always in my head. Although I do like eating good food, and seeing new places, and I like dancing even if I am not very good at it.
When I was a child I didn't know it was possible to be an artist. But I knew one could be a writer, so that's what I wanted. And I did publish some things, but it felt weird having to choose a specific language - images are so much more direct and global. Although I grew up in Sweden, and lived for many years in the USA as well as Spain, I have family in several places in the world and I like the idea of keeping a critical distance from all cultural identities.

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​My dream project? To fill a big, empty, light space with many, many of my pictures so I could see them all together. Right now I am aiming to make a large number of pictures for the series Ella in the Garden, maybe 71, or 83...we'll see…an odd number in anyway.

I live in Cútar with my husband, in a house that has been our home for over a decade. I also have my studio here, hold workshops at times, and sometimes host other artists and writers looking for a creative retreat and environment.
Helén Svensson Vigil was born in Sweden. As a youth she wrote wrote literature, and publicized poetry, short stories and a novel in Sweden. Then she moved to USA. There she  continued her education, got a Master of Fine Arts, exhibited, performed, and taught art at university. Fate eventually took her back to Sweden, where she came to teach art as assistant professor at the University College of Konstfack for over ten years. She has now lived in Spain for many years, in the small village of Cútar, where she continues to make new art. She shows and sells her work privately and in communal contexts.