Child of light
Gottfried Helnwein is Austria’s most successful modern art identity and a major celebrity on the global art stage. He has been described as the artistic manifestation of Austria’s post-World War Two social anxiety, confronting hidden guilt and exposing it to unflatteringly bright daylight. He involves himself in many different forms of visual art; oil and watercolour paintings (including portraiture and landscapes), drawings, photography, installations, and even theatre and film. He is noted for his photo-realistic oil paintings, as well as his expressionist pieces using acrylic and ink. He became well-known for photographic prints featuring celebrity subjects and is regarded as a stylistic influence on modern rock video imagery. The predominant theme of his work is the intersection of purity and corruption, where goodness and guiltlessness are confronted or co-opted by an often disguised evil. A signature theme of his work is the approach of malevolence towards an unknowing child – innocence meets the armband.
Much has been made of the fact that Helnwein grew up in post-World War 2 Vienna, in a German-speaking country that collaborated with the Nazis and witnessed terrible atrocities. He acts as a tour guide through realms of unnecessary human sadness and also chronicles how easily beauty can be destroyed. He is a perceptive documentarian, contrasting the banality of evil with the innate beauty of goodness. This beauty is easily damaged, often severely, but it retains unmistakable nobility. A pre-eminent motif is his use of stylised military looks and the sense of authority these impart. He leaves viewers to determine for themselves the moral implications of the imagery.
Many of Helnwein’s painted works are unusual in that they feature a photo-realistic style most identified with classical art, a style that fell away almost completely in the modern era. After the invention of the camera, artists chose not to depict (this task was now redundant), but rather to express. Techniques other than direct, naturalistic representations of a subject were favoured. As such, a new art movement was born – “Expressionism.” Helnwein, however, manages to straddle both worlds comfortably. His striking “classical” representations, particularly of children’s faces, are noteworthy because they are uncommon. The seldom-seen becomes the cause célèbre. And yet he also freely creates expressionist works, typically mixed media pieces on canvas using acrylic and ink. (Ironically, he often also uses a camera for this purpose). Helnwein is so proficient in this style that he was once described as the heir to throne of European expressionism. Either way, he is capable of delivering a jolt to audiences – sometimes one of joy at beauty, sometimes one of shuddering recognition that innocence is always at risk of predation and that evil can appear before us in disguised forms.
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