Head Against the Wall: Johanna Helmuth

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The realism in Johanna Helmuth’s paintings portrays her subjects in certain environments that situate them in unsettling scenarios. In the solo presentation Head Against the Wall, the artist visualizes her internal conflicts as she grapples with varying human conditions, ultimately navigating towards a cathartic release. Through the process of layering, texturing, and building of underpaint, she reveals a profound sense of transformation, from despair to a more hopeful state.

Her new series of paintings reflects feelings of alienation from being displaced in a foreign land, away from her studio and removed from her everyday routine. Through her self-portraits, she is reminded of the complexities of life outside the comforts of her studio. In Exhale, she illustrates herself in a moment of powerful emotional release— a scream. This sense of  discomfort is conveyed through the deliberate choice to hang the painting upside down, making it uneasy for the viewers to look at. In another self-portrait, So I Don’t Wander Off, she illustrates the extreme act of amputating her limb to put an end to a journey, all while displaying a gleeful expression that suggests relief rather than pain. Transient Rest, showing her slumping on the ground, content in the moment, echoes this impulse to pause and rest. Conveying optimism and a willingness to start anew after physical and psychological distress, God Knows Where portrays her standing by the side of the road, awaiting a ride to hitchhike— hinting at spontaneity and a revived enthusiasm for life.

Another facet of Helmuth’s realism is her depiction of people close to her as central subjects in her paintings, evident in her works Shared Indulgence and Where The Walls Lean In. These pieces examine her personal relationship with a family relative and how it shapes and contributes to her idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, her paintings expose and scrutinize the egoistic and moralistic tendencies of man. In Condemned To The Sky, Helmuth presents an image of a woman nailed to a cross with one hand bound, with a vulture hovering above her— its hooked claws half-exposed— symbolizing her impending doom. 

Head Against the Wall is a manifestation of the artist’s primal desire to reconnect with oneself: to experience the world as it is. Helmuth acknowledges the impossibility of escaping reality; thus, she confronts it with awareness and  vulnerability, embracing the absurd. It all begins, in Helmuth’s own words, “by painting the terrifying.”

James Tana