Alex Heilbron
Apophenic
September 9 – November 4, 2023
Los Angeles – based painter, Alex Heilbron’s work addresses how the female body, in its physical, psychological, political, and cultural aspects, is perceived in both public and private spaces.
At first sight, Heilbron’s latest paintings register as tight compositions of separate layers on top of each other. Their flat, exact, and repetitive shapes suggest intensive labor and a steady hand with no room for error. Shaped into a grid, patterns seem to hold the canvas and its contents in place. A closer look, however, proves this order to be more porous than appears. The patterns do not consequently lie atop, nor fully cover, the underlying imagery. Rather, they weave between the various layers of color and image, and at times are even integrated with the figures. Intertwined, the layers confront perspective as background and foreground collapse into a single continuity of horizontal space. Heilbron lives and works in Los Angeles. (text: Lara Schoorl)
Alex Heilbron received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009 from the San Francisco Art Institute, studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 2014-2017 and earned her Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. Heilbron has exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 2022, her work was included in the major survey exhibition Women Painting Women curated by Andrea Karnes at The Modern, Fort Worth, TX (catalog). Other recent solo exhibitions include High Shame at Hiestand Galleries, Miami University, Oxford, OH and Scent Description for a Young Woman at Ashley, Berlin. Group shows over the past few years include exhibitions at LAXART, Los Angeles. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Cosmo Sports, Düsseldorf, Good Forever, Düsseldorf, Contemporary Fine Art, Berlin and Unit/Pitt Gallery, Vancouver. She has received numerous awards including the William and Dorothy Yeck Purchase Award, the Helen Frankenthaler Scholarship in 2019 - 2020 and a Pollock-Krasner Grant for 2023-24. Heilbron lives and works in Los Angeles.
