» ... puzzle the viewer by their seeming conventionality, more precisely, by their drastic concreteness and
obtrusive local atmosphere. The unconventional, however, has become conventional for a long time, a phenomenon
which is responsible for the unconventional expression of Helga Druml’s paintings. This happens although the paintings
contain everything that may seem quite pleasing at frist sight: man and nature, pastoral themes, blazing colours, an
amazing technique and thick layers of oil.
However, the idylls figured by Helga Druml are not real idylls but the
blackest depths kept in balance by the irony of the painter. The paintings make up for their concreteness -without
confining themselves to reproductions- by a subtle appearance of the imaginary in the actual painting itself. «
Konrad Paul Liessmann, 1996
» ... a network of relationships, interhuman tensions, convetousness and voyeurism as well as the
artist’s critical attitudes towards our modern fragmentary view of society which is also characterized by uninhibitedness,
hypocrisy and excessive piousness. The artist shows all this in a coded and ironical way, such as in her paintings of bishops.
In her more recent paintings the background is arranged as a homogeneous space which gives even more emphasize to the portrayed
figures so that they seem to hover, to have no solid ground under their feet.
It would be too simple to describe Helga Druml
as a mere successor to the “Nötscher Kreis”. It’s true that she borrows historical stylistic devices, like the colours pink and
light blue from Franz Wiegele or the compositional element from Anton Kolig, but she uses them in a highly individual way and
develops an emancipatory style from them. «
Romana Schuler, 2006
» ... or groups of figures show people in urban as well as rural, sometimes even exotic surroundings
and combine reality with unreal overlapping spaces. With a critical eye and downright irony Druml exposes connoted role models,
makes women slip into papal garments and visual contacts underline the complex relationships among her protagonists. On the one
hand animals, plants or garments show her interest in tactile moments, on the other hand they symbolize the conditions of a
society which are often magnified or made unfamiliar by the use of colour. According to the artist these elements are responsible
for a network of tension with the figures and are associatively used for the spheres of sensuality, eroticism, femininity but also
for transitoriness. Traditional clothes and folk costumes as well as the rural flora and fauna serve as a layer of film in order
to visualize the depths that are concealed behind this surface. «
Silvie Aigner, 2008