About Edith Hillinger

Berlin born, Edith Hillinger spent her childhood in Turkey and later moved to the United States as a young adult where she received a B.A. at NYU. Hillinger has won several awards and received various other recognitions for her work. She also has exhibited her work in dozens of solo and group exhibits both nationally and internationally.

Hillinger’s work is aimed to transform common elements of nature into abstract forms. She achieves this by physically manipulating her subject matter and then painting it from a new perspective. Hillinger paints various parts of plants. Before painting them, she’ll place them in a flower press. This, she expresses, works much like an X-ray machine; it exposes elements of the plants that were previously hidden just beneath the surface. Hillinger then paints her flowers in a macro view. These very close up images force the viewer to look at the subjects from a brand new perspective. The results are beautiful canvases that combine the dichotomy of the every day and the abstract.

Education

            1964 Four-year certificate in painting, Cooper Union School of Art,

                     New York

            1964 Painting scholarship, Provincetown Workshop, Provincetown,

                     Massachusetts

            1965-66 Textile Design, New School for Social Research, NY

            1976 B.A., New York University, New York

Grants and Awards 

            2016 Nominated for the SECA ART AWARD, SFMOMA

            2015 First Prize, Viridian Artists 26th Annual International, NY

            2005 Artist-in-residence, New Pacific Studio, Mt. Bruce, New Zealand

            2004 Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Award in painting/photography

           1976 International Women’s Year Award, The Women Artists Historical Archives, New York

                    Artist-in-residence, The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire

                    Artist-in-residence, Montalvo Center for the Arts, Saratoga, California

           1975 Painting award, Silvermine Guild of Artists, New Canaan, Connecticut

                     Painting award, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions

           2018 Vessel Gallery, Oakland, California

           2017 Peninsula Museum of Art, Burlingame, California

           2013 A Collision of Cultures, Offramp Gallery, Pasadena, California

           2010 Natural Perspective, Larson Gallery, University of Minnesota,

                    Minneapolis and St. Paul

           2009 Togonon Gallery, San Francisco

           2008 Togonon Gallery, San Francisco

           2006 Togonon Gallery, San Francisco

           2005 Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, Carmel, California

           2005 Aratoi Museum, Masterton, New Zealand

           2004 Museo Café Gallery, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

           1986 Amerika Haus Gallery, Munich, Germany

           1983 Bluxome Gallery, San Francisco

           1981 Works on Paper, Shirley Cerf Gallery, San Francisco

                     Electro Arts Gallery, San Francisco

Teaching

          1971 Fredrich D. Zeman Center for Instruction, New York City

          1972-1975 School of Visual Arts, New York City

          1976-1979 Private watercolor instructor, California

          1980-1985 California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California

 

Lectures

           2008 Women In The Arts Foundation –Women Artists Legacy Issues

           2015 Women In The Arts Foundation – BAWA Legacy Project

 

Writing

           1998 Christian Science Monitor

           1997 Hemisphere Magazine

           

Membership Organizations

            National Association of Women Artists (elected 2009)

            Women in the Arts (member since 1970)

            Bay Area Women Artists’ Legacy Project (founder, 2014)

                    In 2014 I founded the Bay Area Women Artists Legacy Project to address

                    issues embedded in our society that make it difficult for women to

                    preserve their legacies after they die. This is an ongoing project

                    designed to work with art organizations to address these long

                    standing issues.

            Women’s Caucus For Art National and Regional Chapters

 

Galleries

            Offramp Gallery, Pasadena, California

            SF MoMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California

 


Artists Statement

         

            “Trust in nature, in what is simple in nature, in the small things that hardly anyone sees and that cans suddenly become huge, immeasurable” Rainer Maria Rilke

            I paint large watercolors of very small fragments of nature – often a single petal or leaf. A fragment taken out of context, the petal removed from the flower, is experienced as an abstraction by the viewer. By concentrating on what I see and reducing it to its minimal expression, I capture the essence of the moment, the subject and my experience in viewing the subject.

            I paint flowers that have been pressed in a plant press. The pressing acts like an x-ray and the veining, usually hidden by the color of the flower, becomes visible.

Artist Phone: 510 526-1879

Artist Email: edithhillinger@gmail.com

Artists Personal Website: www.edithhillingerstudio.com