Compositionally, I am painting the space in between and around forms, as much as the forms themselves.

The composition and shapes I use on the canvas convey negative and positive spaces that alternate: sometimes the dark color recedes into a void, a nothingness; at other times, the darkness emerges to become the subject and the gradients of colors become the background.

The gradients are a gradually dawning or dimming light source, an expansion, and a fleeting moment of time. Some shapes come close to touching but don’t; there are tension and longing in that sliver of space between them.

I work intuitively, painting the initial linework and shapes on muslin stretched over wood panels. During multiple reworkings, I fill in the shapes with colors, repainting everything in several layers and refining the edges as I go.

I often apply a blended gradient of bright and/or complementary colors, and a solid black made from a mix of deep blue and red oil paint. The resulting paintings evoke ambiguity and a realm of possibilities.

Aleya Hoerlein is a painter based in Taos, New Mexico. She graduated from The School of Visual Arts in New York City as a painting candidate and with a BFA in graphic design. While studying, she was an artist apprentice, and upon graduation she became a photo retoucher and built her own retouching business. The pandemic of 2020 brought her daughter Rumi into the world, a new style of painting, and a transition from retouching to painting full time.

Her paintings have appeared in publications such as New American Paintings, The Brooklyn Rail, Southwest Contemporary, Hyperallergic, and I Like Your Work, and have been on view in group shows at G2 Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, Site:Brooklyn Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, The National Arts Club in New York City, and Far x Wide’s fundraisers. Hoerlein is a co-founding member of the Taos Abstract Artist Collective (TAAC), and co-curator of TAAC’s Inaugural exhibition at Taos Center for the Arts / Stables Gallery in Taos, NM. Her paintings are held in private collections in New York, California, Tennessee, Washington, Montana, Arizona, and New Mexico.