| Thomas Helbig's paintings approach abstraction | | | | materials, Helbig creates a biomorphic abstraction |
| with a quirky intimacy. Set in wonky hand-made | | | | veering between charred and fossilised remain and |
| frames, his canvases exude a contemplative | | | | science fiction species. Embedding smooth |
| authority, broaching high culture with folk craft. | | | | moulded forms in rough globular material, Jung |
| Reminiscent of the black forms of Robert | | | | Frau possesses a tactile physicality at odds with |
| Motherwell or Franz Kline, Maschine resurrects | | | | itself: fragile and brutal, elevated and primitive. |
| modernist principles of artistic autonomy, creating | | | | Coated in high gloss black paint, Helbig's sculpture |
| a unique platform in which Helbig engages with art | | | | is both sinister and humorous, suggesting |
| and history in a personal way. Expressionistically | | | | apocalyptic narratives that are glamorous and |
| rendered in chalky tones, Maschine manifests a | | | | abject.At first glance Thomas Helbig's sculptures |
| corrupted aesthetic; his clunky form enshrined in a | | | | appear to be futuristic ruins; bizarre and broken |
| muddy painterly field alludes to a defunct beauty, | | | | finds hinting at some remote gothic civilisation, |
| its unresolved composition encapsulating the poetic | | | | glorifying its defunct authority. In fact they are |
| failure of ideas.Thomas Helbig's abstractions strive | | | | made from contemporary debris, objects and |
| to capture the essence of power. Within his raw | | | | knickknacks found in dustbins and flea markets. |
| canvases, Helbig alludes to the unwieldy forces of | | | | Helbig's studio is a laboratory of invention where |
| nature, and the representational modes used to | | | | the discarded ephemera of daily life is broken and |
| harness its vastness. Stylistically, Helbig recycles | | | | reassembled with construction materials to create |
| art history, implicating visual language as reflective | | | | totems of fictional power. Through this process of |
| of ideology: from the political subtexts of | | | | abstraction, Helbig poses formal solutions as |
| abstraction, to the religious spiritualism of | | | | literary escapism, drawing a timeless mythology |
| romanticism. In Seele, Helbig creates a field of high | | | | from the everyday. Taking both barbaric and |
| drama, his blacks and blues churning with the | | | | poetic form, Vater exudes a romantic |
| unpredictable depth of night. Reminiscent of | | | | supremacy, creating an alien parallel to known |
| Turner's climactic impressionism, Helbig's Seele | | | | history. |
| suggests both haunting landscape and stormy | | | | View Thomas Helbig paintings, biography, solo |
| psychology. | | | | exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of |
| Thomas Helbig's Jung Frau offers a morbid | | | | Thomas Helbig artist. View art online at The |
| fascination. Using the textural contrasts of | | | | Saatchi Gallery - London contemporary art gallery. |