Page 8 - THELIN

Philippe Thélin - The expressive force
Alain Chivilò | Art Critic, Curator, Freelance Journalist
In the last century, the artistic movement of
Expressionism, remaining in the figurative
field, created and unveiled the feelings of
humanity. Emotions and sensations that in
the Fine Arts found new forms of expression
than the past.
The Swiss artist Philippe Thélin in his
personal artistic career feels this: a strong
will to express everything that society
perceives, starting from the perceptions that
Master receives by his state of mind.
A “Sturm und Drang” painting where all
feelings move on the object represented,
because the deep interiority of the human
soul is constantly traced. A painting
that investigates everything felt through
interiority. Precisely in Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner’s quote, “my paintings are allegories,
not portraits”, revolves the expressionism
poetics and consequently Thélin painter.
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A continuous struggle determined by deep
emotions, is born in long compositional
silences, because the Swiss master finds in
them the essence that allows him to reveal
the true color and the true brutal style that
determines the reality.
A storm and an inner assault pervade his
works in landscapes, still life, portraits,
flowers and self-portraits.
Nothing is stubborn or complacent, because
Philippe Thélin’s works are true, raw, strong
always able to shake but at the same time
to denounce a collective spirit disrupted by
infinite emotional situations.
In summary Thélin, as the German writer
Kasimir Edschmid wrote, in expressionist
painting we can find “a spirit requirement”
where “it is not a style compendium. It’s a
soul problem. It’s of humanity”.
Also published in the Italian magazine Artstyle,
summer edition 2017