Laura Cumming reviews an exhibition of works by Thomas Scheibitz at Baltic Mill, Gateshead, on view through November 3, 2013.

Cumming writes: "Scheibitz is an old-fashioned draughtsman with a hyper-modern mind. Twenty years ago he began to create his own parallel universe, based on this one but translated out of time through the use of brilliantly artificial colours and an incisive, high-tech execution. His subjects were generally landscapes – villages with church spires and picket fences, say – that might have been familiar had they not been reduced to their lineaments, taken apart and reassembled as outlandish new vistas, fizzed up with dolly-mixture colours. The picture surfaces held enough light and energy to pep up the weariest of minds, while the elegant linearity of the image steadied the eyes. They were both super-formal and wildly ebullient."