Alex Heilbron is a Los Angeles–based artist whose work examines pattern as both a formal device and a site of cultural meaning shaped by social, psychological, and political perceptions of femininity. Drawing from found images, she enlarges and distills these forms, burrowing into them at the pixel level to intuit underlying structures. These patterns are exhaustively translated into vinyl stencils and placed on the surface of the canvas, building surfaces that are meticulously handmade yet constrained by digital systems. Across her work, Heilbron insists on painting as a physical mode of communication, embedding traces of embodied labor within systems that increasingly threaten to eclipse it.
Alex Heilbron (b. San Rafael, California) received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and studied with Rita McBride and Christopher Williams at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at as-is, Meliksetian Briggs, Temple Projects, and LAXART in Los Angeles, CA; Claremont Lewis Museum in Claremont, CA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, CA; The Modern in Fort Worth, TX; Wil Aballe Art Projects in Vancouver, BC, Canada; Anne Barrault in Paris, France; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Germany; and Moscow Museum of Art in Moscow, Russia. Heilbron received a Pollock-Krasner Grant for 2023-2024 and a Helen Frankenthaler Painting Award in 2020. Her work has been featured and reviewed in publications including The Brooklyn Rail, artnet, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Glasstire, Paper City Magazine, and Santa Barbara Independent. Heilbron lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Born in San Rafael, California
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California
EDUCATION
2020
MFA, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
2017
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Meisterschüler from Christopher Williams
2009
BFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, A
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2017
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
RESIDENCIES & AWARDS
2023
Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant
2021
Canadian Council for the Arts, Research and Creation Grant
Kala Art Institute Residency, Berkeley, CA
2019
Helen Frankenthaler Painting Award
British Colombia Arts Scholarship
William and Dorothy Yeck Purchase Award
PUBLICATIONS
2022
SELECTED ARTIST LECTURES
2024
Artist Talk, Museum of Contemporary Art, Dallas
Artist Talk, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
2023
Visiting Lecturer, Scripps College, Department of Art, Claremont, CA (ongoing)
2022
Art Department Visiting Lecturer, University of California Santa Barbara
Artist Talk, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France
2021
Artist Talk (as Riviera Parking), University of California Santa Barbara
2020
Artist Talk, Miami University, Miami, FL