Helen Davison Bradley is a British painter and author based in Gloucestershire.

She studied Fine Art at Cheltenham & Gloucester College before working for many years in graphic and web design. She returned to painting in 2010 and subsequently studied traditional drawing and painting at Sarum Studio in Salisbury.

Her work moves between portraiture, still life and landscape, ranging from closely observed paintings to much more abbreviated studies. Although grounded in observational drawing and traditional oil-painting techniques, she is interested in what happens when description is reduced: how much information a painting needs, what can be omitted, and how colour, tone, edges and the physical handling of paint can carry an image.

Helen is the author of Classical Oil Painting: Atelier Techniques, published by The Crowood Press in 2026. The book brings together the technical foundations of oil painting with a belief that technique should expand an artist’s choices rather than prescribe how a painting ought to look.

She has frequently exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Society of British Artists, Bath Society of Artists and Royal West of England Academy. She was awarded the ING Discerning Eye Chairman’s Purchase Prize and has received several awards from the Bath Society of Artists.