Charline von Heyl (b. 1960, Germany) is an abstract painter who also works with drawing, printmaking, and collage. Living and working in the United States since the 1990s, her work contains many references to the art history and contemporary culture of both Northern Europe and North America. Her pieces show elements of Abstract Expressionism and Synthetic Cubism, without committing to one single style. Through a “desire to invent an image that has not yet been seen,” von Heyl plays with movement, shapes, and colours to create enigmatic pieces of art. Her work combines elements of graphic design and abstraction, resulting in vividly colourful intricate patterns of meaning that are at once seductive and discomforting. Through a process based on both structure and experimentation, spiked with a pinch of irony, her artworks force the beholder to experience the here and now.
Von Heyl has studios in New York City and in Marfa, Texas, and her work has been exhibited in many art galleries and museums in the United States and Europe, including Dallas Museum of Art, Tate Liverpool, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Hirshhorn Museum, and Sculpture Garden.