Alex Heilbron
Meliksetian | Briggs is pleased to present a solo presentation of a suite of new paintings by Alex Heilbron conceived especially for the exhibition at NADA New York May 5-8, 2022.
Employing formal elements of patterning and the grid, Alex Heilbron’s paintings explore the feminine and femininity, along with digital image creation and consumption via the handmade. Addressing societal conversations of gender fluidity and identity, Heilbron’s paintings propose feminine visual realities as the center around which all other images evolve.
Interrelated thematically and formally, Heilbron’s portrait-oriented paintings create a linked visual narrative where symbols, patterns and a repeated feminine figure move seamlessly from one work to the next. These patterns form grids of floral motifs, geometric shapes and rigid lines, that withhold and expose the underlying imagery of female figures and disrupt the picture plane by appearing simultaneously as foreground and background, creating an interplay that both flattens and enhances the multitude of hand-painted layers.
In her new paintings, Heilbron continues to explore the complex, coded, and culturally embedded systems of femininity through the use of patterning, bright colors and hyper-stylized symbols of young women and flowers. Appropriating imagery reminiscent of digital production, in person the paintings insist on a visual experience that operates on a slower timescale.
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. 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 (b. 1987, San Rafael, CA) has exhibited both nationally and internationally. In May 2022, her work will be 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. In 2019, she won the William and Dorothy Yeck Purchase Award and the Helen Frankenthaler Scholarship in 2019 - 2020. Heilbron lives and works in Los Angeles. In March 2022, her work was featured on PLATFORM, a curated online gallery backed by David Zwirner Gallery (www.platformart.com).