Baldur Helgason

Menippean Satire

€1,700

Artwork

Edition of 50

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A humorous reflection of the ambient anxiety of modern life by Baldur Helgason.

Highlighting the unfulfilled need for connection in society, Helgason is known for caricatures which seem playful at first, yet are subversive, emotive and discomforting.

Menippean Satire, as its title suggests, considers pervasive attitudes rather than a specific individual or group. The work's crazed but smiling subject fits right in amongst Helgason's oeuvre of delirious cartoons. To create the edition, the artist drew by hand onto a soft ground copper etching plate. Once complete, the plate was inked and used to print the edition one by one.

Behind the scenes

Baldur Helgason2 collaborationsModern life is comical and unsettling. Just like caricatures by Baldur Helgason. Often, they’re in the style of cartoons from the 1950s – like Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse. The figures are clown-like, grappling with tricky spaces, smoking, or painting. On the surface, the oil paintings are playful. But they deliberately confront the ambient anxiety of society. Helgason starts with a “blank canvas and puts down a layer of Burnt Umber.” Then, he layers pigments of bright vivid colours over it. His artistic inspiration comes from “the Masters style of painting skin tones. Like Rembrandt or Sargent.” Like Helgason, their portraits reflected on society in the 17th-century and Edwardian-era.

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