Tess Bilhartz
Waves
On view 24/7 from the sidewalk: April 2 – May 20, 2026
at Main Window Dumbo
1 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Opening Reception: Thursday April 2, 6-8pm

Tess Bilhartz grew up in Dallas, Texas and currently lives and works in New York City. Her paintings and installations build on a lineage of artists who conceive a world beyond visible reality. She works with imagery from storytelling genres like fantasy, sci-fi, and horror that create familiar containers for extreme, absurd, or hidden feelings. She layers symbols like monstrous teeth, a distorted shadow, or an alien handprint with materials such as paint or pencil. Over time, this layering transforms the image to embody tangled interior states.

In the spirit of these genres, she uses this process to suggest that perceived reality is like the surface of a river with hidden currents moving beneath. Bilhartz creates deliberately confounding images where invisible layers of colors and marks structure the visible surface. Ambiguity reigns. Cropping obscures the story that unfolds out of frame. What caused that impression in the sand? Whose hand is resting on a rock? Why is the figure transparent?

This irresolution reflects an interior life that might feel familiar to many: conflicting emotions, changing sense of self, and unsettling unfixed boundaries.

Recent solo exhibitions include Now You See Me at Deanna Evans Projects (2025), Follow Me Down at Rubber Factory (2022), and What on Earth at Below Grand (2020). Her work has been reviewed in the Brooklyn Rail and BOMB magazine. Her work has been included in recent group shows at Embajada, San Juan, PR, Primary, Miami, FL, Front Gallery, Houston, TX, and Island, New York, NY. Residencies include the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2017), and the Sharpe Walentas Space Program (2013).