“The first time I saw one of Chloe Hedden’s paintings, I remember feeling lost in the best sense of the word. Her magnified depictions of faceted crystals and blooming flowers have a singular way of sucking you in. The longer I stared, the more I believed I was swimming in a sea of silken petals.

The artist grew up in a tiny town in Southern Utah, where the vast red desert, dramatic canyons, and wide-open skies left an indelible impression. “I grew up playing outside in one of the most beautiful places on earth,” she said. “The weather was always doing something, and I was observing … I had very robust imaginary worlds.”

Over the years, she has lived and worked everywhere from London, Rome, and Edinburgh to Los Angeles, Boulder, and San Francisco.

Today, the artist has a lovely and layered outlook on the world, which she shares through the tip of her paintbrush. Her work celebrates the complex beauty of organic matter, from the kaleidoscopic refractions of a sunlit citrine to the undulating universe of a peony in bloom. Flowers and minerals aside, she says it’s the way these subjects are ✨ illuminated ✨ that she finds most stimulating. “My art has always been about light, plain and simple,” she shared. “In college, I had this professor who said to us, painting is about the poetry of light as it falls across forms, and I got really into that … I am always looking for the poetry.”