PRESENTATION: Angela Heisch-Gilded Slides
Known for her luminous application of color, Angela Heisch composes paintings of repeated motifs, curving forms, and delicate, gestural lines. Drawing inspiration from organic bodies, patterns in nature, and the cosmos, Heisch’s paintings are infused with waves of energy and tension, capturing triumphant yet fleeting moments of balance and stillness.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: GRIMM Gallery Archive
Angela Heisch paints carefully in multi-layered applications of oil on canvas to achieve the desired atmospheric qualities and emotional tenor of the final work. Each painting is characterized by a sense of movement, a fluidity reflected in the opposing properties that coexist on the canvas – hard and soft, light and dark, flatness and depth. Such oppositional symmetry is at the heart of the artist’s practice and infuses her paintings with an embodied inquisitive gaze, directly inviting the viewer to engage and explore open-ended states of possibility and meaning. Angela Heisch presents new paintings and works on paper in her solo exhibition “Gilded Slides”. Her latest body of work continues her translation of the unique structures and ornamental patterns found within nature into unravelling, abstract painterly forms. Her canvases become containers in which flowing geometric bodies collide, emerge and recede. Influenced by the baroque, jewel tones pair with monumental scale to form a stage where the viewer can enter into the depths of each painting, unravelling a sense of balance between the macro and micro planes of space. Mirrored by the artist’s pastel works on paper – prequels for the larger works and exhibited simultaneously – Heisch illustrates the interplay of organic and built worlds, how each reflects the other when observed at various proximities. These works bridge the gap between the organic and the mechanical, echoing both floral and architectural motifs simultaneously; partially recognisable yet constantly in motion, dissolving from view. Anchoring each composition are shimmering orbs that direct the eye across the surface of the canvas, providing a way to gaze in and out of the growing atmospheres that fracture around each sphere. As indicated by the exhibition’s title, the paintings in Gilded Slides are united by their shared undulating golden hues and a strong sense of motion, creating tangible spaces within each composition. Heisch’s application of pigment – whether in oils or pastel on paper – accentuates its physicality and ability to embody weight. Evoking atmospheric descriptors of pressure and light – such as density, dampness and haze – opaque expanses present boundless, impenetrable space, while luminously soft areas appear to drift off the surface of the canvas. Though Heisch delineates her forms intuitively, each relates to an architectural structure where lines and planes of colour provide a foundation upon which to hang or build upwards. These complex compositions bring together elements with conflicting properties – solid contours, soft gradients, delicate lines, sweeping stretches of color, geometric shapes and organic, flowing forms. Each encounter generates a palpable flow of energy – at times, even a sense of claustrophobia, as its momentum approaches the bounds of the canvas. With the picture plane acting as a container, the image appears as an interior realm or psychological landscape, where diminutive circular forms seem to gaze back at the viewer. Located in this reflection is a stillness – a sense of calm that counterbalances the emanation of growth. Such playful contradiction is at the heart of the artist’s practice, with ideas emerging as unsettled or inconclusive. Heisch invites the viewer to respond with curiosity, presenting an open-ended state of possibility.
Photo: Angela Heisch, Flares, 2021, Oil on linen over panel, 152.4 x 152.4 cm | 60 x 60 in, © Angela Heisch, Courtesy the artist and GRIMM Gallery
Info: GRIMM Gallery, Keizersgracht 241, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 2/9-22/10/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://grimmgallery.com/
