Thomas Helbig
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Thomas Helbig (born 1967 in Rosenheim, Germany) is an artist based in Berlin.
Helbig attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich [1] and Goldsmiths[2], London from 1989-1996.
He has shown work in many exhibitions including “Hands Up, Baby, Hands Up!” at Oldenburger Kunstverein [3], “Surfacing” at the ICA [4] in London and and “Freide, Freiheit, Freude” at Maschenmode in Berlin. He has shown internationally at galleries and museums such as Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Danel Hug Gallery in Los Angeles and The Approach in London. Helbig is represented by Galerie Ban Kaufmann [5], Munich and Galerie Guido W. Baudach [6], Berlin.
Thomas Helbig’s paintings are often derived from images and methodologies gleaned from instructional art books. Helbig’s paintings approach abstraction with a quirky intimacy. Set in wonky hand-made frames, his canvases exude a contemplative authority, broaching high culture with folk craft. Reminiscent of the black forms of Robert Motherwell or Franz Kline, Helbig resurrects modernist principles of artistic autonomy, creating a unique platform in which he engages with art and history in a personal way.
Commanding with a painterly dynamism, Helbig’s abstractions strive to capture the essence of power. Within his raw canvases, he alludes to the unwieldy forces of nature, and the representational modes used to harness its vastness. Stylistically, Helbig recycles art history, implicating visual language as reflective of ideology: from the political subtexts of abstraction, to the religious spiritualism of romanticism.
At first glance Thomas Helbig’s sculptures appear to be futuristic ruins; bizarre and broken finds hinting at some remote gothic civilisation, glorifying its defunct authority. In fact they are made from contemporary debris, objects and knickknacks found in dustbins and flea markets. Helbig’s studio is a laboratory of invention where the discarded ephemera of daily life is broken and reassembled with construction materials to create totems of fictional power. Through this process of abstraction, Helbig poses formal solutions as literary escapism, drawing a timeless mythology from the everyday.
