Helbig combines symbolic references to the classical avant-garde with abstract motifs that evoke associations with cosmic phenomena and at the same time recall the moonlit night skies of Romanticism – albeit in close-up. Seen purely from a painterly point of view, here multi-coloured underlaid areas of sulphurous pastel yellow enter into a relationship with softly layered brown tones and form a contrasting space of light and shadow that is both shimmering and interwoven with delicate sfumato.

The light that Helbig’s paintings carry within them does not serve any further narrative. There are no references to any discourses, no entertainment through advanced content. The paintings and their light stand for themselves and also leave the viewer alone with himself, throwing him back on himself by searching for something identifiable in them. They function like mirrors, as it were, but they reflect something invisible. Their painted light illuminates a void that is not socially mediated and yet is inherent in each one of us, an existential loneliness from which we constantly try to escape. The paintings illuminate an apparition that is difficult to name, but which is perhaps the core of our being, that is: our soul.