Schaulager: HELMA. Dreamworlds
11 January – 8 February 2025, extended until 3 May 2025

Please note that the gallery is only open by appointment on 1 May.

Galerie Poll has played a part in HELMA’s artistic journey since the 1970s. To celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday in May 2025, the Berlin artist is presenting paintings spanning multiple decades in our Schaulager under the title “Dreamworlds”. Following this initial solo exhibition, the gallery will showcase HELMA’s work through the re:discover program at art karlsruhe 2025 (February 20th–23th).

HELMA’s paintings are deeply connected to surrealism, art brut, and magical realism. They tell of dreams, fairy tales, and visions, evoking a sense of the boundless and the profound. Their beholders encounter snakes coiling around stark branches, or crosses and flaming wreaths amidst tree roots and ladders stretching skyward. Bounteous blossoms, tangled vines, and thorns, along with hearts, are recurring motifs.

Often rendered in vibrant reds and blues, her scenes are executed with obsessive precision in oil. Her paintings blur the line between inner and outer worlds, dreams and reality, creating a poetic beauty where a hint of menace seems to loom. Inspired by Thomas Bernhard’s poetry and Franz Kafka’s narratives, some of HELMA’s works also contain autobiographical reflections. They defy straightforward interpretation.

HELMA’s paintings are profoundly immersive: “One gazes at them and is involuntarily drawn in – like Alice falling into the rabbit hole, which ultimately reveals itself as the gateway to Wonderland. A Wonderland likewise unfolds in HELMA’s works, filled with snakes, trees, cats, roots, mushrooms, flames, ladders, and wreaths. With their striking colours and meticulous detail, these elements create a magnetic pull and an unmistakable signature.” (Matthias Ehlert in art karlsruhe magazine 2025)

HELMA was born on 8th May 1940 as Helma Hartmann in Berlin, where she passed away on 10th March 2025. From1959 to 1961, she trained as a technical draftswoman at the Berlin Vocational School. In 1964 she married artist Wolfgang Petrick; their daughter Nina was born in 1965. HELMA began painting in 1974 and adopted her artist name that same year. Her works have been exhibited in galleries, art associations, and museums worldwide. HELMA’s pieces are held by distinguished private and public collections, including the Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection in Berlin, the Jutta and Manfred Heinrich Collection in Maulbronn, and the Artothek of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK).