Thomas Helbig
Viper in Bosom
Vilma Gold is
pleased to present a new exhibition of work by German artist
Thomas Helbig.
For his first exhibition at Vilma Gold Helbig will exhibit
a new series of drawings, paintings and sculptures. With references
to the Russian Avantgarde and Surrealist practices, Helbig
seems to engage with, and subvert, the languages of modernism
they encompass. This is perhaps most apparent in Helbig’s
overpaintings of found paintings and wall decorations. He
has described the effect this has as ‘discovering something
through concealment’ or ‘making something visible
through encryption.’ Often, through this process of
reworking, forms are organically revealed so that a process
of transmogrification takes place. In other works, found portraits
have had their faces blackened and smeared by paint, with
the saturation of the canvas seemingly having occurred with
such violence that the drips left by the application of paint
fall all the way down to the frame. The suggestion of gravity,
through the way material has been applied, is rarely a quality
the forms in his paintings are burdened by. Mostly the picture
plain has a weightless quality as objects hover, suspended
as if by extraneous forces. For Helbig the concept of suspension
is closely connected to the Baroque and the way dramatic use
of light and illusory effects like trompe l'oeil are used
in the churches of Helbig’s native Upper Bavaria to
create greater spiritual affinity.
Helbig’s paintings and sculptures are often borne out
of earlier drawings. Torn from the pages of his sketchbook,
his drawings appear to have a spiritual affinity to Surrealist
automatic drawings and contain rapid flecks of colour, ominous
shapes and faint references to mythological icons through
the use of form and symbolism. In Helbig’s sculptures
paint, resin and polyurethrane cover partially destroyed statue
heads, tree roots and an array of thrift shop and castaway
objects that have been dissolved, flattened and broken down
to forms barely recognisable of the structures they once were.
Coagulated and yet perceivably mutable Helbig’s sculptures
seem to have a life force of their own, watching over the
gallery space they act as arresting punctuation from the contemplative
reverie that Helbig’s paintings invoke.
Thomas Helbig was born in Rosenheim in 1967 and lives and
works in Berlin. In 2007 he had a solo show at Oldenburg Kunstverein
and has participated in group shows at Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Tourcoing (2008), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2008),
Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2008), ZKM, Karlsruhe
(2007), Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2007), Tate Modern,
London (2007), Goetz Collection, Munich (2006) and Oldenburger
Kunstverein (2003). Helbig is currently participating in the
exhibition ‘Underclass Atavism’ at Gentili Projects,
Prato, curated by Veit Loers.
For further information or images please contact Katharina Zimmer:
+44 (0)20 7729 9888 or: katharina@vilmagold.com
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