Angela Heisch: Gleaming Containment
Yi Space is pleased to present Gleaming Containment, a solo exhibition of paintings and pastels on paper by Angela Heisch. The exhibition is on view in Hangzhou (CN) from March 29 to June 22, 2026.
Across the exhibition, light appears suspended within biomorphic and architectural forms, including membranes, chambers, and scaffolds that simultaneously protect and release it. The artist turns her attention to luminosity itself, treating light not simply as illumination but as subject. Containment emerges as a generative force that intensifies rather than restricts radiance.
Heisch builds her compositions through repeated motifs, curving forms, and delicate gestural lines. Drawing on organic structures, natural patterns, and cosmic phenomena, her surfaces pulse with energy and quiet tension. Many works appear lit from within, their glow refracting and spilling across layered planes and ambiguous landscapes to create a sense of movement and unfolding narrative. Light is captured, dispersed, and reframed by surrounding structures, producing moments of balance between pressure and release.
Working in layered oil on canvas and densely built pastel on paper, Heisch achieves atmospheric depth and emotional resonance. Oppositions coexist across the picture plane, including hard and soft, flat and dimensional, opaque and translucent. These dualities, long central to her practice, are animated here by a heightened focus on interior illumination. Light presses against its boundaries and tests the limits of its enclosures.
Gleaming Containment foregrounds suspended brilliance, instances in which luminosity feels both fragile and triumphant. Abstraction becomes embodied and immersive, building spaces where perception slows and vision adjusts. In this heightened state, containment transforms into a vessel for possibility, and light becomes a living presence held delicately in view.
About Yi Space
Yi Space, situated at the foot of Chenghuang Pavilion on the shores of West Lake, opened in 2023. Covering an area of 4000 square meters with a building space of 800 square meters, it comprises three exhibition spaces, two outdoor gardens, a multifunctional hall, and artist residency facilities. Positioned in close proximity to the renowned Liu Lang Wen Ying and the China Academy of Art, Yi Space aims to inherit the profound cultural heritage of Hangzhou while embracing the beauty of nature.
Yi Space systematically collects artworks from domestic and international art masters, supports the diverse exploratory creations of young artists, and actively plans and organizes contemporary art exhibitions and activities. The goal is to facilitate interaction and dialogue between international art masters and Chinese contemporary artists. Simultaneously, Yi Space provides a space for close interaction with art masters for professional collectors, creates a platform for art practitioners to engage with classics, and offers an aesthetic haven for art enthusiasts.
About the artist
Angela Heisch (b. 1989, Auckland, NZ) lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY (US). She received a BA Fine Arts from the University of Potsdam, SUNY, NY (US), in 2011 and an MFA from the University of Albany, SUNY, NY (US), in 2014.
Recent exhibitions include Between Fields and What Isn’t, No Place Gallery, Columbus, OH (US); Order and Other, Main Projects, Richmond, VA (US); Chambers, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Woman in a Rowboat, The Olivia Foundation, Mexico City (MX); Picnic at Hanging Rock, Chapter II, Sargent’s Daughters, Los Angeles, CA (US); Fruit and Fruition, curated by Angela Heisch, GRIMM, New York, NY (US); Abstraction (re)creation - 20 under 40, curated by Franck Gautherot and Seungduk Kim, Le Consortium, Dijon (FR); Wild, curated by Kathy Huang, Metropolitan Museum of Manila (PH); As above, so below, K11 Art Museum, Shanghai (CN); and As above, so below, GRIMM, New York, NY (US).
Heisch’s work can be found in the collections of the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (LB); AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); Center of International Contemporary Art, Vancouver (CA); Columbus Museum of Art, OH (US); Fundación Medianoche0, Granada (ES); H+ Art Museum, Suzhou (CN); Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL (US); K11 Museum, Shanghai (CN); New Orleans Museum of Art, LA (US); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (IL); The Olivia Foundation, Mexico City (MX); Pond Society, Shanghai (CN); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); The Whitworth, Manchester (UK); and the University of Warwick Art Collection (UK).
