MERCEDES HELNWEIN

Born in Vienna, Austria, Mercedes Helnwein started writing and drawing at an early age, developing a deep fascination for both fields.  In 2000 she began to divide her time between Los Angeles and Ireland, exhibiting her art regularly and writing short stories and essays for literary journals. With influences ranging from Southern Gothic traditions to the cartoons of Robert Crumb, to nineteenth Century Russian literature, American motel culture and the Delta blues, her work began to take on a style of it’s own, both in her fine-art as well as her writing.  She has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions in New York, Berlin and Dublin, with her latest show “Whistling Past the Graveyard” at the Merry Karnowsky gallery in Los Angeles.  In 2008 Simon and Schuster published her first novel “The Potential Hazards of Hester Day”.