Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell: The Wild Within

The Wild Within is Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell's first solo exhibition in New York and the largest presentation of the series to date. 

Bringing together large-scale photographs, immersive moving image works, and a new body of hand-cut glass mosaic sculptures, the exhibition traces the evolution of a project that began with an unexpected discovery: a scattering of Soviet-era flower postcards across the floor of an abandoned post office in Georgia. That fleeting encounter sparked an ongoing exploration of how color, vegetation, and imagination can transform spaces marked by neglect, history, and the passage of time. 

Working from photographs of abandoned palaces, theatres, places of worship, and civic buildings around the world, Koopmans and Wexell digitally reconstruct these interiors before allowing foliage, light, and atmosphere to slowly reclaim them. The new mosaic works bring these imagined spaces back into physical form, extending the project beyond the screen. The exhibition also marks a return to the city where the artists first met and began collaborating, making this New York presentation both a milestone in their practice and the fullest expression of The Wild Within so far.

Ryan Koopmans (b. 1986) and Alice Wexell (b. 1992) are Stockholm-based artists whose collaborative practice explores the relationship between architecture, nature, and time. For the past 15 years, drawing on experiences living in New York, London, and Amsterdam, they have created works that combine photography, motion, and digital sculpture to transform real architectural spaces into immersive, imagined environments.

Koopmans, a Dutch-Canadian artist, examines the intersection of architecture, society, and the natural world through geometry, repetition, and color. His work has been exhibited internationally since 2007 and is held in major private and institutional collections. Wexell, a Swedish digital artist, brings expertise in animation, coding, and emerging technologies, blending technical innovation with poetic storytelling. Works by the artists have been widely exhibited and collected, including presentations at Christie’s London, Sotheby’s France, and the Francisco Carolinum Museum in Linz, Austria.

Since its establishment four decades ago, Leila Heller has gained worldwide recognition as a pioneer in promoting creative dialogue and exchange between Western artists and Middle Eastern, Central and Southeast Asian artists. In 2010, Leila Heller moved from the Upper East Side to its flagship space, Leila Heller Gallery, in Chelsea where it has garnered a reputation for identifying and cultivating the careers of artists leaving a lasting impact on contemporary art and culture.

In March of 2019, Leila Heller made her return to the Upper East Side after eight years. The New York space has since brought its focus back to the secondary market, and has hosted events such as Double Vision, curated by Jane Holzer and featuring works by Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, and Keith Haring, amongst others.

In 2015, Leila Heller opened the Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai, its first international location in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. At 16,500 square feet and 32-foot ceilings, it is a state-of-the-art gallery that features three exhibition spaces, making it the largest gallery in the Middle East. Showcasing leading regional and international artists, many of whom will be presenting their work in the Middle East for the first time, the gallery is dedicated to supporting the evolving practice of established artists. The gallery has strong innovative curatorial and educational programs with an emphasis on promoting a dialogue between Western and Middle Eastern artists.

In addition to presenting a dynamic exhibition schedule, Leila Heller Gallery actively organizes shows with world-renowned curators, hosts educational panels and film screenings, and produces catalogues and books with scholarly essays. Each year the gallery participates in major international art fairs and stages off-site projects as a platform for exploring new conversations within a wider context of galleries, artists and institutions. Gallery artists have consistently participated in international museum exhibitions and biennials, and are included in leading institutional collections worldwide.