Thomas Helbig's paintings are often derived from images and methodologies gleaned from instructional art books. Half-completing the lessons, Helbig omits the final stages: his canvases, suggestive of landscapes or portraits, become longing abstractions based equally in aesthetic impression and subversive formulation. Braun Welle depicts a virgin land evoking the sublime engagement with nature found in The Hudson School's new world paintings. Devoid of picturesque detail, Helbig envisions a barren terrain, offering dystopian promise.Thomas 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, Maschine resurrects modernist principles of artistic autonomy, creating a unique platform in which Helbig engages with art and history in a personal way. Expressionistically rendered in chalky tones, Maschine manifests a corrupted aesthetic; his clunky form enshrined in a muddy painterly field alludes to a defunct beauty, its unresolved composition encapsulating the poetic failure of ideas.

Thomas Helbig's abstractions strive to capture the essence of power. Within his raw canvases, Helbig 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. In Seele, Helbig creates a field of high drama, his blacks and blues churning with the unpredictable depth of night. Reminiscent of Turner's climactic impressionism, Helbig's Seele suggests both haunting landscape and stormy psychology.Thomas Helbig's Wilde Mit Spiegel sets up a questionable allure, positing the perception of beauty as a consequence of excess. Hidden within an abstract field of wild brushwork and gory splatters, Helbig paints a figure, profiled as grotesque caricature. His Holbien-ish shrew is defined by her painterly construction, the mimetic qualities of the media bubbling as boils and warts, crackling like matted hair; above her head a chandelier of gobby yellow suggests tarnished halo. To the left, an orange vignette doubles as figurative mirror and comic speech bubble brandishing a sketchy image of pleasantry.

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Find more about Thomas Helbig paintings, biography, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of Thomas Helbig artist. View Thomas Helbig artwork online at The Saatchi Gallery - London contemporary art gallery.Thomas Helbig