Tahnee Lonsdale, Look up to see where rain began, 2025, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. (121.9 x 91.4 cm.)
April 8-May 13, 2026
Alexander Berggruen is pleased to present our first solo show with Tahnee Lonsdale. This exhibition will open Wednesday, April 8, 2026 with a 5-7 pm reception at the gallery (1018 Madison Avenue, Floor 3, New York, NY). The gallery will host a public walk-through with the artist on Saturday, April 11, 2026.
Tahnee Lonsdale
The Sun Looked Kindly Upon Us, 2026
oil on linen
60 x 72 in. (152.4 x 182.9 cm.)
Photo: Nik Massey
In Walk With Us Into The Forest, Tahnee Lonsdale envisions a spiritual ecosystem of abstracted feminine beings who are interconnected, sentient, and watchful of their fragile human acolytes. Her clustered figures recall sacred geometry while evoking forms that range from cells and atoms to trees, planets, and constellations.
All of Lonsdale’s paintings are contained within painted, frame-like borders that suggest the historical format of scrolls and papyrus. The edges are a way for the artist to create the borders of a world not dictated by the boundaries of the canvas. Within these borders are open, undefined spaces that pulse with colors and textures echoed in the figures, infusing them with a ghostly translucency. For the artist, these beings are alive—perhaps as guardians that inspire a sense of wonder in nature.
Tahnee Lonsdale
Flares, 2026
oil on linen
55 x 50 in. (139.7 x 127 cm.)
Photo: Nik Massey
Through a slow process of layering undiluted oil paint, the artist builds the figures loosely and abstractly from the inside out. Some figures are transparent, altering the color and light of their environment and neighboring forms. This results in overlapping shapes reminiscent of those in Paul Klee’s work.
The orbs that ultimately define themselves as heads are often an empty space created from a vacuum of activity. They are all that remains of the original underpaint. The selective details she reveals often gesture toward natural elements. For instance, the figures’ hands suggest flowers, while their towering bodies recall plant stems. At times, the figures’ skirttails form a border at the lower edge of the painting, which the artist likens to the underbelly of clouds. Where the space above the realms of sight remains mysterious, so too do the beings in Lonsdale’s paintings. The eyes are the final elements Lonsdale adds, offering viewers a point of connection to the figures. When depicted, the feet are delicately pointed and floating, as if they are hovering or about to drift away. The figures may even be on the cusp of evaporating into abstraction. Lonsdale stated, “These beings are becoming less being. They are dissolving.”
Tahnee Lonsdale
We Rise, 2026
oil on linen
55 x 50 in. (139.7 x 127 cm.)
Photo: Nik Massey
In relation to one another and to the confines of the canvas, the figures range from monumental to infinitesimal. Some figures tower over others, appearing matriarchal. Smaller figures are often nested within and alongside larger figures, some of whom are reduced to small specks of light, resembling the glowing forms in Gustav Klimt’s paintings. In the paintings Flares and Waxing Moon, three primary figures appear, inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s rendition of The Three Graces. Even here, circles and dots subtly indicate other beings beyond the central three.
Visual similarities to both real and science-fictional elements of the universe emerge. In Cathedral Grove, yellow-green figures recall the colors often culturally associated with aliens; yet their red hands gesture toward flowers amidst a verdant landscape. In Look up to see where rain began, a spiral of orange circles contrasts with the predominantly blue composition, evoking multiple moons or a lunar cycle.
The paintings in Walk With Us Into The Forest act as windows into a spiritual realm, engendering reverence for nature, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Resonant moods of connection and interdependence imbue Lonsdale’s figures with warmth and welcoming energy. Depicting figures gathered closely in community, the paintings offer, in Lonsdale’s words, “a thickness of mist that embraces— a metaphorical nod to nature and all its alien-ness.”
Press release by Kirsten Cave, adapted from the artist’s statement.
Tahnee Lonsdale in the studio, Los Angeles, CA, 2026. Photo: Nik Massey.
Tahnee Lonsdale (b. 1982, Reading, UK) received a BA in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art, University of the Arts, London, UK. Recent solo shows of her work have been held at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; MASSIMODECARLO Piéce Unique, Paris, France; Galerie Fabian Lang, Zurich, Switzerland; Mine Project, Hong Kong; and Cob Gallery, London, UK. Her work has also been exhibited at Acquavella, Palm Beach, FL; Nassima Landau Art Foundation, Tel Aviv, Israel; Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, Victoria, AU; X Museum, Beijing, China; Perrotin, Dubai, UAE; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; and Saatchi Art, Los Angeles, CA and London, UK. Lonsdale has participated in Exhibition A’s artist in residency at Cerámica Suro in Guadalajara, Mexico and the Dragon Hill residency in Mouans-Sartoux, France. In 2019, she was a finalist for The Hopper Prize. Lonsdale lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
This exhibition follows Londsale’s inclusion in the gallery’s group show Raul De Lara, Shanique Emelife, Sihan Guo, Tahnee Lonsdale (December 11, 2024–January 15, 2025).
