Helen Tabor is a painter living and working in the Scottish Borders. She was born in Middlesex in 1960 and studied English and History at York University. She spent a number of years teaching in The Himalayas before settling in Scotland in 1995.

All of her work is in oil on canvas or board. She usually starts with a background of collage which creates a textured, patterned effect on which she can build her painting.  She often works with large brushes, applying the paint boldly initially and then refining the image as she develops the painting. Using a collage base gives depth and takes her in interesting directions so that the painting is to some extent  led by the interaction between the paint and what is underneath.

Her inspiration comes from many sources, among them the great Scottish painters of the last century, William McTaggart, Joan Eardly, Anne Redpath, William Gillies and John Maxwell; music, her family, the surrounding hills, fields and shores of southern Scotland and Picasso.

Her subject matter may be landscape, seascape,  still life or figures although her main interests are in the properties of colour, the  effects created by the movement of the paint and in the mood she creates in the painting.