at EIGEN + ART Lab

11 SEP – 17 OCT 2026

Opening – 10 SEP 2026, 6–10 pm

Lili Theilen’s (*1998) works often appear large-scale and expansive. Yet even her smaller works open up wilfully individual perspectives and hold their spaces.

Reduced to two-dimensionality, the figurations stand out against mostly monochrome, static backgrounds. Despite their gentle, transparent brushwork, the pieces exude a commanding presence. This occupation of space is a recurring theme in Theilen’s work.

The artist works with multiple layers of diluted paint, the result, however, appears invasive, as if the paint was being scraped away. The figures seem to peel themselves out of the shadow-streaked background and, in their monochromaticity, appear ghostly, lifeless and out of place.

Empty backgrounds, reduced figures, cryptic narratives: Theilen takes up the space that she can effortlessly fill.

At Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin

11 SEP – 31 OCT 2026

Opening – 10 SEP 2026, 6–10 pm

On 10 September, we are opening Stef Heidhues’ solo exhibition ‘hook, line and sinker’. Through freestanding sculptures and wall installations, Heidhues arranges expansive compositions to create walk-in pictorial spaces. Her works often take their cue from gaps and empty spaces that Heidhues identifies in public and social surroundings – such as open grounds created by building sites, empty sign holders or shop windows covered with tape. By exploring these ‘blank spaces’, Heidhue’s works highlight the potential of defined areas that are occupied in an ambiguous or temporary manner, within which a shift in their original function takes place. This also raises questions about visibility, access and representation in an urban context.

The exhibition runs until 31 October.

Stef Heidhues (born in 1975 in Washington D.C., USA) studied Fine Art at the HfbK Hamburg from 1999 to 2005 in Franz Erhard Walther’s class, and also attended the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon, France, in 2003.

Heidhues has received numerous grants and awards that have taken her both at home and abroad, such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s EHF 2010 Trustee Programme in 2012/13; a travel grant to Los Angeles from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in 2015/16; and an artist-in-residence programme at CCA Andratx, Mallorca, in 2016; in 2018 she was awarded a fellowship by Villa Aurora, Los Angeles; in 2021, a working grant from the Stiftung Kulturfonds, Bonn; and in 2021, a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York City.

Her works have been shown in international solo and group exhibitions, including at the Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019), the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen (2013), the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2018), the Goethe-Institut, Bologna, Italy (2015), the Kunstverein Jesteburg (2021), the Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin (2021), the Ostfriesland Biennale (2022), at the Museum für konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, and at Rheda Castle (2024).

Stef Heidhues lives and works in Berlin.