Mercedes Helnwien’s work is mainly comprised of vintage looking doll-like women and girls – all slightly unhinged. She is a rare breed in that she is a young, pretty woman who is more than holding her own in the art world and is doing so while staunchly sticking to illustration (and realism at that, gasp!) as her medium of choice.
The LA Times describes her most recent show at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery as Photorealism, a practice that gained popularity in the 60s as a response to the Abstract Expressionism of the 50s (think Jackson Pollock). It gained popularity along side other movements, most famously Andy Warhol’s Pop Art.
A typical critique of Photorealism is that it is superficial; as an audience we are impressed by the technical skill behind it but are left cold in all other respects. About Photorealism, courtesy a writer for the New York Times, “setting aside the wow factor of photorealist painting – admittedly, a very big aside – this insanely popular art genre holds precious little of enduring significance … in the end [detail] is what photorealism is all about – acres of it, minutely rendered in mock imitation of the modern photograph. So look hard. What you see is what you get.”
Although I think that the whole sale dismissal of any school of art is part of the pretentious culture of exclusion/inclusion of the formal ‘Art Scene’, I would argue that Helnwein’s work does not even fit under the banner of the much maligned Photorealism. When you look at her work up close, she makes apparent the scratches, movements and layers of pencil that have gone into creating these pieces. Her work isn’t the smooth surface of a mirror or photograph, but is rather craggy and slightly unfinished much like her fragmented and mildly dangerous group of misfits. If this is Photorealism, it is Photorealism at a Halloween party. A very cool party.
Helnwein’s most recent exhibition called East of Eden (named after John Steinbeck’s 1952 classic) is at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles until December 19th.
Image: High Noon (2009), © Mercedes Helnwein