The idea of Carte Blanche is to provide a platform for contemporary art now. Local and International creatives and artists will be given the opportunity to show their works in a virtual gallery online and a gallery space at the Aurora premises.
June 2025
Mirijam Heiler
Mirijam Heiler was born in 1991 in Bressanone, Italy. She lives and works in Bolzano, Italy. Heiler studied Fine Arts at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, as well as theology at the Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany. The artists work is not about amplifying the noise of the world but prefers showing the quiet, the reduced. Order, repetition and restraint take centre stage. The paintings are mostly monochrome, characterised by non-colours and pastel tones such as grey, blue or grey, blue or rosé. Instead of telling a lot, Heiler deliberately leaves blank spaces. She is interested in what becomes visible when you take things away. Unagitated her works are a conscious rejection of excess, of loudness, of obtrusiveness. The visual language remains consistently reduced, no illustration, no narrative. Repetitions and recurring elements play a central role, as in Poem Pine Needles. The pine needles become signs like a mixture of letters and ideograms. A recurring theme in Heilers works is that of dwelling in the form of houses, tents or fragile structures. It is less about architecture and more about questions of retreat, order, temporary security. Her artworks open up spaces for concentration and like to be quiet attempt to respond to the complexity of the present. The exhibition entitled DUO for the 13th Carte Blanche edition shows works from the last few years. The title recalls the double presence of several artworks throughout the exhibition in different sizes and plays with simplest of repetitions itself.
„Minimalism is not about having less. It’s about making room for more of what matters.“
The work shown at the Aurora
They are sold directly by the artist to the customer with a certificate of authenticity and invoice.
About
DUO
Mirijam Heiler
The solo exhibition DUO of Mirijam Heiler´s works is understood as an extensive overview of the past three years of creating. It is the 13th edition of the Carte Blanche series and succeeds in connecting the different areas of the Hotel with each other by showcasing various artworks but all with similar appeal.
Heiler´s works are based on the repetition of the simple geometrical forms that often turn into grids. Grids can be repeated infinitely and embody the principle of organization par excellence. It is simplicity and order that prevail.
Since the beginning of her practice Heiler was interested in the cultural and historical value of structures and boundaries and how they shape peoples perception of the world.
Heiler in her works likes to show reduction and takes away rather than adding. She offers a new version of how to touch and feel non verbal poems and reflects throughout her works how artists like Irma Blank have shaped and influenced her ways of artistic expression.
For the solo exhibition in the premises of the Aurora Hotel in Merano Heiler has created new works with ink on paper like Casa I to Casa V, all created in 2025. The notion of home, the house is predominant. The paintings are mostly monochrome, characterized by non-colors and pastel tones such as grey, blue or rose.
Her work explores the layered meanings of house and home not just as physical spaces, but as vessels of memory, identity, and transformation. Using fine lines of pencil on paper she creates semi-abstract compositions that reimagine domestic architecture as both sanctuary and site of personal evolution.
At the heart of Heiler´s practice is a commitment to expressing female empowerment. The house, often seen as a traditionally feminine or constrained space, becomes a metaphor for strength, self-definition, and reclamation. Through subtle textures, intricate line work, and pared-back forms, she aims to challenge and soften rigid structure, visually and conceptually, while honoring the resilience embedded within them.
Drawing from both personal experience and collective narratives, her pieces invite the viewer to reconsider what it means to inhabit a space, a role, or a body. Each work is a quiet act of resistance and reflection a blueprint for empowerment drawn with care, precision, and intention
Mirijam Heiler is known for her meditative and minimalist approach to painting. Her work often explores themes of structure, rhythm, and calm through the disciplined use of grids like the Series Clouds ,2023.
Heiler’s paintings are characterized by simplicity, deliberate paring down of form and a palette that invites quiet contemplation. Utilizing soft, muted tones and geometric frameworks, she builds visual compositions that feel both orderly and emotive. There is always a grounding element in her work, a space where subtle variations in hue and texture create depth and movement despite the minimal visual language.
Replication plays a central role in Heiler’s practice not only as a compositional device but also as a process-oriented meditation. Through repeating shapes and marks, she explores ideas of time, balance, and imperfection. Each work holds the tension between uniformity and individuality, the mechanical and the handmade.
Mirijam Heiler’s paintings speak to a contemporary sensibility rooted in restraint and introspection. In an overstimulated world, her work offers a quiet counterpoint, an invitation to pause and consider the beauty in stillness, pattern, and soft persistence.
Eva von Ingram Harpf
Event Photos
Coming Soon
THE IDEA
The aim is to curate the Hotel’s art specifically - we want there to be good stories and a lasting wellbeing for the guests as well as try to make them have a unique and distinctive experience. The interplay of art design and the Hotel Aurora’s architecture is what characterizes this special place in South Tyrol. The historic hotel in Merano is marked by art treasures and designer pieces that one can find throughout the hotel as well as in every room and this is what makes the Aurora so outstanding. Carte Blanche will host about 6 art exhibitions per year and is keen on giving artists the opportunity to also create site specific works for the hotel that will be shown permanently. The shown art works as well as art editions of works on display will be available at the Hotels Aurora’s own art corner.
THE CURATOR
The upcoming exhibitions will be curated by the freelance curator Eva von Ingram Harpf. Curator Eva von Ingram Harpf, 1987, after graduating from Bocconi University in Milan with a thesis in Art Banking worked at Johann König Gallery in Berlin, as well as Ghetta Gallery, Ortisei and holds a Master´s degree in Contemporary Art from Sothebys London. Since 2012 she works as an independent curator and art adviser and is based in Bolzano, Südtirol, Italy. She is a member of the board of ar/ge Kunst Bozen and founder of y-contemporary platform.