The bird's eye view suggests a kind of superhuman vision which can simultaneously take in the entire view with breath-taking clarity, like some bionic eagle.

The landscapes, and a cityscape of Vienna, presented in this exhibition draw these different threads together. Helnwein takes the panorama, that heroic nineteenth century attempt to contain all knowledge in a single image, and suborns the green hills of Ireland to his contemporary take on the imperial gaze. In like fashion he paints large vistas of the Arizona desert, a landscape so different from the lush Irish fields and yet also very connected, through emigration and through images in the films of John Ford, whose Irish sensibility helped shape the mythology of the American West. Many of Helnwein’s paintings are of interiors, dark and claustrophobic. These large panoramic landscapes are a relatively late development in his work and, while they eschew the narrative, they clearly reveal the visionary quality of his art.

What is certain is that with these works Helnwein has raised the bar for artists to come with art that is groundbreaking in terms of scale, skill and vision. Painted mountains, fields and sky can never be the same again. ...

a breathtaking, epic scale. They are extraordinarily beautiful, by any standards, and, yes, they are paintings. — The finish may be photorealist, but these are not direct transcriptions of what the camera lens sees; they are edited and informed by the artist's eye.

Consequently they cannot fail but to strike a chord, as you marvel at the skill involved in creating such vivid and realistic landscape views. So much so that Fáilte Ireland is surely gaining free advertising, as many will be inspired to venture out and experience these places first hand. — Helnwein re-creates theses vistas using a composite of photographic sources which cram multiple focal points into a single view. The surfaces are absolutely flawless with practically no evidence of the artist's brushwork. Studying the surface is absorbing, as the viewer is immersed in the detail as much as seductive wider views of the vast, undulating topography.

So what, you may yawn, but the work has to be seen to be believed. — Helnwein specialises in the classic, dramatic sublime and, not surprisingly, Caspar David Friedrich is cited as an influence.