Utopia Editions

Aubrey Levinthal: New Monotypes

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This presentation debuts a new series of monotypes by Philadelphia-based artist Aubrey Levinthal. Known for her intimate paintings of everyday life, Levinthal brings the same sensitivity and quiet power to her works on paper, drawing from a new body of work that captures fleeting, often autobiographical moments.

Aubrey Levinthal in her studio, Philadelphia, 2024. Photo by Courtney Apple

“Aubrey Levinthal is one of the most interesting and engaging figurative painters at a time when many artists are working in this vein.”

—John Yau, poet and critic

In Sink with Bouquet, tulip and hellebore stems peek out from within a vase resting in a sink. But the viewer’s eye is drawn to a different kind of stem–that of the sink faucet, where the artist’s fractured reflection looks on.

Aubrey Levinthal, Laptop (Glow), 2025 (detail)

Featured works in GIF by Aubrey Levinthal, from the artist’s solo exhibition Mirror Matter, currently on view at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, through September 13, 2025.

Levinthal is known for paintings that capture passing moments in the lives of a cast of characters in downtown Philadelphia. Often autobiographical, her works possess a sense of melancholy introspection tinged with gentle humor and connection.

Created on the occasion of an exhibition at Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh–the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK–these new monotypes isolate key motifs from Levinthal’s new paintings, offering a sort of lexicon of the artist’s recent practice.

“In my painting practice I feel the pull of two strong, and sometimes oppositional impulses; graphic shape and tone and atmospheric space and color. It’s been really interesting to be able to pull apart these formal drivers of the work, taking two versions of the same image in separate directions or stacking them back together, deliberately, in layers on the same monotype.”

—Aubrey Levinthal

Aubrey Levinthal, Bath Knees II, 2025 (detail)

Bath Knees II is an exercise in close looking, as two triangular forms in a body of water reveal themselves as lanky knees protruding from a bath by way of clues placed in the background: an array of soap containers on the bath’s edge and the bathing figure’s face emerging from (and reflected in) the water.

Such autobiographical fragments recur throughout the works, often within a reflection, as in Circle Mirror and Mirror Mouths II–in which the artist’s mouth and chin are doubled by the beveled edge of a bathroom mirror. Elsewhere, glimpses of the artist appear from behind quotidian objects: a laptop, a bouquet, or a Tupperware container.

“Despite the ordinary situations she describes, Levinthal’s paintings imply that drama is less interesting, less potent, than the fleeting minutes and hours of our days. The artist finds a magical balance of the monumental and the delicate.”

—Jennifer Higgie, writer, critic, and former editor of Frieze

The intimacy of these works recalls the paintings and prints of Bonnard, Vuillard, and Matisse, yet they are resolutely contemporary in tone and subject.

Aubrey Levinthal, Mirror Mouths II, 2025 (detail)

Aubrey Levinthal, Circle Mirror, 2025 (detail)

Paintings in Levinthal’s studio, Philadelphia, 2024. Photo by Courtney Apple

Paintings in Levinthal’s studio, Philadelphia, 2024. Photo by Courtney Apple

 

Aubrey Levinthal, Ziti Sweater, 2025 (detail)

About the Artist

Aubrey Levinthal was born in Philadelphia in 1986 and currently lives and works in Philadelphia. She studied at The Pennsylvania State University and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Levinthal’s work is housed in collections around the world, including: Ballinglen Museum of Art, County Mayo, Ireland; Danjuma Collection, Esher, UK; The Flag Art Foundation, New York; Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Reinhard Körner Foundation, Berlin; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, and X Museum, Beijing. Levinthal is represented by Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh and Haverkampf Leistenschneider, Berlin.

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