Helga Stüber - Nicolas was born in Hanover, Germany.
She lives and works in Montpellier, in the South of France.
 

She discovered her love of color pencil as an art student in Paris.
The repetition of stroke and gesture in her graphite drawings brought her to focus on the pencil as a tool.

She shaves and sharpens hundreds of color pencils, grinds their leads into powder and arranges the fragments in new compositions on paper or canvas.The light shavings mingle into geometric forms: sphere, cube, cone. Millions of these delicate slivers are stacked onto large spheres, arranged in layers like a fish's scales. The thin fringe of paint on the edge of each wooden shaving is an essential component: with a color the object somehow becomes more tangible.

Experimenting with such a delicate material stimulates thoughts that the artist also hopes to arouse in those who view her works. Her pieces are intended to encourage people to reflect on the fragility of matter and become aware of how transitory our existence is. By choosing fragile elements, she reaches the limits of the artwork's tension and provokes fear of the irreversible. A questioning about immateriality and the intimate relationship to substance arises.

The artist's work implies a research of new space occupation, and also of material resistance. A reflection on the fragility of matter, on how transitory our existence is. In our increasingly virtual world, the pencil, an often neglected object in our daily routine, regains another life and dimension through the artist's sensitivity.