ISRAEL ATEN

Israel Aten
CORE
On view through October 25th, 2025

M. LeBlanc is proud to present ‘CORE’, the gallery’s first exhibition with Detroit-based artist Israel Aten. The exhibition also marks Aten’s debut solo exhibition in Chicago and at the gallery. Included in the exhibition are a selection of the artist’s recent painting and sculpture.

Aten’s project, a study in representation and its travel through time, provides a territory to dissect the relationship between process and form. For Aten, painting is not always evolving, but always ending - forever rupturing and querying how the end of the image could appear. It is evident in the unflinching seriality of the work, that Aten’s question is philosophical from the beginning. What is the relationship between man and image? And moreso - what is an image in the epoch of the post-human?

Israel Aten (American, b. 1986 in Detroit) lives and works in Detroit. Select recent solo exhibitions of Aten’s work include Israel Aten (2022) at Galerie Natalia Hug in Cologne, Israel Aten (2021) at What Pipeline in Detroit, and RADAR: Blast Valiant (2016) at LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur and Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, DE. Aten’s work has also been curated into numerous group exhibitions in past years, some of which include Israel Aten Quintess Matranga Veit Laurent Kurz at What Pipeline (2025) in Detroit, Charismatic Goods (2024) at CANADA in New York, Birds of a Feather (2020) at Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture in Hasselt, Belgium, Jetzt! Junge Malerei in Deutschland (2019) at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Museum Wiesbaden, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Museum Gunzenhauser, and Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Aten graduated as Meisterschüler from Düsseldorf’s Kunstakademie. 

Core_1.jpg
Core_2.jpg
Core_3.jpg
Core_4.jpg
Core_5.jpg
Lucent Core (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 109 x 72 in. (277 × 183 cm)

Lucent Core (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 109 x 72 in. (277 × 183 cm)

Fortress (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 54 x 40 in. (137 × 102 cm)

Fortress (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 54 x 40 in. (137 × 102 cm)

Obsidian (2025), acrylic, spray paint, marble dust, and charcoal on canvas, 98 x 72.5 in. (249 x 184 cm)

Obsidian (2025), acrylic, spray paint, marble dust, and charcoal on canvas, 98 x 72.5 in. (249 x 184 cm)

Seraph (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 56 x 38 in. (142 × 97 cm)

Seraph (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 56 x 38 in. (142 × 97 cm)

Lux (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 98 x 74 in. (249 × 188 cm)

Lux (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 98 x 74 in. (249 × 188 cm)

Eight (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 54 x 40 in. (137 × 102 cm)

Eight (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 54 x 40 in. (137 × 102 cm)

Tumulus (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 62 x 42 in. (157 × 107 cm)

Tumulus (2025), acrylic, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas, 62 x 42 in. (157 × 107 cm)

Antiquity (2025), wood, plaster, slaked lime, conté crayon, spray paint, charcoal, silver foil, marble dust, silk, rayon, and ink, 50 × 21 × 14 in (127 × 53 × 34 cm)

Antiquity (2025), wood, plaster, slaked lime, conté crayon, spray paint, charcoal, silver foil, marble dust, silk, rayon, and ink, 50 × 21 × 14 in (127 × 53 × 34 cm)

Core_14.jpg