Thomas Helbig (born 1967 in Rosenheim, Germany) is an
artist based in Berlin. Helbig attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
and Goldsmiths, University of London, from 1989-1996. Helbig’s paintings, abstracted and gestural, give a
hint or an impression of something familiar, yet they remain enigmatic and
abstruse. With a dramatic palette, Helbig alludes to the unwieldy force of
nature and recalls some of Caspar David Friedrich’s more ominous paintings that
anticipate a sense of foreboding and perhaps something greater than we, as
humans, are. Artists like Friedrich and Rothko have been influential to Helbig
as he looks to explore spirituality through his work and address that which is
beyond our control. “We do not know what powers and violent forces determine
us. However, in the work of Thomas Helbig the psychic energies that govern us
find their form, their precise and their authentic expression,” – Berthold
Reiss. For his sculptures, Helbig’s studio is a laboratory of invention where
discarded ephemera of daily life is broken and reassembled to create totems of
fictional power. Searching flea markets and the like, the artist finds
figurines and discarded lawn ornaments such as Greek nudes, gnomes, animals and
other intriguing objects that are often fragmented, contorted and reassembled
into biomorphic abstractions.
Helbig has shown his work in many exhibitions
including at Oldenburger Kunstverein, at the ICA in London and at Maschenmode
in Berlin. He has also shown at galleries and museums such as
Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Danel Hug Gallery in Los Angeles and The
Approach in London.