A gothic hyperrealism: on the disturbing portraiture of a virtuoso painter

This is the first large-scale survey of the work of Ireland- and Los Angeles-based artist Gottfried Helnwein (born 1948), who is known for his hyper-realistic images and his photo portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Marilyn Manson. In his recent, more provocative images, Helnwein articulates themes of violence and abuse in compelling and shocking ways. In particular, children, whose innocence, naivety and tenderness he brings into focus, are projection surfaces for this body of work. The iconography of children, from the innocence of the early years to young girls taking up guns, shows differentiated facets of the soul that are stirring, emotionally gripping and brilliantly realized. Above all, the culture of European Romanticism, with its abysses of the soul lost in nightmares, provides Helnwein with motifs which act in their own dramaturgy of fear and cruelty.