The Patterns We Perceive: Bruce Helander

Past Exhibition

Bruce Helander:
The Patterns We Perceive – New Paintings on Fabric & Other Mysteries

February 1 – February 16, 2019
Palm Beach
Bruce Helander Artist Page

The Fritz Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Bruce Helander: The Patterns We Perceive—New Paintings on Fabric & Other Mysteries. Bruce Helander is arguably one of the best known and successful artists in South Florida; he has had a long and distinguished career of related professional activities as an art critic and curator. His work is in the permanent collections of over fifty museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has exhibited his work in many Florida museums, including the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton Museum of Art as well as the Norton Museum of Art, which acquired 26 individual collages for their collection during his exhibition at the museum. Helander’s work is in numerous corporate and private collections, including many of the top contemporary art collectors in Palm Beach. Kenworth Moffett, former director of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, wrote in Gold Coast magazine, “If there was a Pulitzer Prize for collage Helander would surely win it.”



Helander is best known for his collages, which often are transferred onto canvas and appropriated from cultural imagery. Presented for the first time, the new works in this show are collages from vintage and contemporary images; these images have been abstracted, altered, and re-contextualized. Some works explore floral patterned fabric, which has been manipulated with painting. Other works explore historic moments, such as Mickey Mouse’s balloon debut in 1934 at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This show will also feature new collaborative works created with Helander’s wife, Claudia; she creates framed living compositions of plant and moss materials, which can also be seen at Café Boulud in the Brazilian Court and the Esplanade on Worth Avenue. 



The opening reception will take place on Friday, February 1, 2019, from 6-9pm. The Fritz Gallery is located at 211 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach, FL. The gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5pm, and Sunday and Monday by appointment only. For more information, or to RSVP, please email info@fritzgallery.com, or call (561) 906-5337.



Biography: Helander has exhibited his work in over 100 solo exhibitions around the world, including London, Venice, Paris, Dubai, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, among others. His work has received national acclaim in a variety of art publications, such as ARTnews, Art in America, The New Criterion, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The New York Observer, and The New Yorker. Helander received his BFA in Illustration and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, where later he was appointed Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. He also has studied at Yale University for Journalism.

Selected Works