...

Gottfried Helnwein, whose provocative work was vandalised while on display during the Kilkenny Arts festival in 2001, is to show a range of paintings most of which focus on the child. ...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

The apple certainly didn't fall far from the tree for Austrian/Irish artist Mercedes Helnwein. The daughter of art provocateur and performance artist Gottfried Helnwein, whose controversial collaborations included works with Marilyn Manson and Sean Penn, Mercedes soon discovered creativity was flowing freely through her veins too. ...

Mercedes Helnwein, the daughter to renowned painter and art provocateur Gottfried Helnwein, showed from an early age signs of an inherited artistic talent, both as a writer and a painter. She began to exhibit after moving to LA in the year 2000. With a list of influences as varied as southern blues, turn of the century Russian literature, and 1960s comic book artists, Helnwein's work garnered high praise from the outset.
The drawings in her latest exhibition range from small, individual portraits to narrative scenes, all with a tangible sense of 'Americana' ...

Visitors to the South Tipperary Arts Centre over the past two weeks are being confronted with some striking artworks and reaction has been swift and to the point. ‘Last Chapter Of Dreaming’ the exhibition of drawings by Los Angeles-based Artist Mercedes Helnwein are a series of portraits based on the seven deadly sins and a number of larger works displaying unusual domestic events. ...

Mercedes Helnwein says: "from Robert Crumb to Alfred Kubin, and from Bukowski to the Blues [these artists] have helped push me in various directions, ultimately landing me in a style of my own."
She continues: "I think the power of visual art – what it does to the viewer, what it stirs up or lets loose – is something that can’t be transcribed into words, at least not with great accuracy. Therefore I find it hard to go into great detail about the mechanics of creating art or finding subject matter. I draw whatever amuses me at that specific moment in time. It feels good, it feels like it needs to be done – and so I indulge in it. ...

...

Woman: Wie wichtig ist das Land in dem man lebt? - Renate Helnwein: Wichtig für den Seelenfrieden. Mein Land ist Irland. Ich liebe das Land und die Menschen. Es ist das erste Mal, dass ich einen Ort als Heimat empfinde. ...

Nicht nur einheimische Stars wie U2 haben vom weltweit einmaligen Modell profitiert. Auch kreative Ausländer wie Michel Houellebecq oder Gottfried Helnwein suchten Unterschlupf auf einer Insel, die nicht nur der Seele, sondern auch dem Konto gut tut. ...

The nuptials of schock rocker Marilyn Manson and burlesque queen Dita Von Teese were never going to be conventional, but as Hamish Bowles discovered as he tracked the celebrations from Los Angeles to Tipperary, they were also filled with high drama and high style.
... The following afternoon our cars are trundling through the darkening landscape to Helnwein's baronial castle, a forbidding Hammer House of Horror edifice complete with turrets, crenellations, and a lone bagpiper. ...

The String Quartet No.1 in E Minor starts like a windswept landscape – overcast and abandoned. A strong current of all four instruments introduces the theme with an unexpected immediacy and pulls you into a story of which you are about to be the author. From the headstrong first movement you’ll soon be dropped into five minutes and thirty-four seconds of someone’s bleeding heart – the second movement. Starting with a minimalistic plucking that sounds like the last raindrops of a storm, the music gracefully gives way to the slow and lulling depths of the cello. By the way, you’d be surprised how something that sounds like velvet can cut like a razor. But whatever dreams you might have lost yourself in, the third movement will wake you up. ...

DVT: I'm in London. Manson and I got married last weekend in Ireland. Our friend, the artist Gottfried Helnwein, has a castle there, which is where we had the wedding.
SP: [laughs] Did you have fun? Was it great?
DVT: I had the time of my life. I think we both did.
SP: What did you wear?
DVT: I wore a giant purple silk-and-grosgrain taffeta dress by Vivienne Westwood and a Mr. Pearl corset. I also wore a little tricorn hat from Stephen Jones. I didn't want a white wedding or a Gothic wedding. It was somewhere in between-just beautiful, rich colors everywhere. ...