Picaresque

Delirious and distorted, Picaresque by Baldur Helgason captures a moment of unchecked emotion.

Helgason’s smiling subject joins a cast of darkly-humoured characters found throughout his paintings that parody modern, exaggerated self-presentation. To authentically represent his drawing style, the artist hand-etched a copper plate at his studio in Iceland. Then, in London, the plate was inked and used to print the edition one by one. The wide tonal range afforded by etching captures Helgason's rounded, lively marks with an elevated level of precision.