Click to read Heather's biography

As a natural outgrowth of motherhood and my training as both a painter and photographer, I've taken perhaps thousands of photos of my son Matthew, my daughter Sarah, and the children that surround us in our day to day lives. With each photo, I try to capture moments of play, wonder, discovery and contemplation in a way that will translate into colorful, captivating paintings. These pictures then become part of our family history, but also the basis of my studio work.

In the studio, the photos are translated into large format, often life-size or larger, charcoal drawings on paper. The drawings are loose, often partially from memory, or from multiple, combined photographic references. In them, I try to evoke the same sense of movement, weight and personality that originally inspired me. Over the charcoal drawing, I layer loose strokes of acrylic underpainting. This step is used to enhance the final tones of pastel, and help define an abstracted sense of space and light. Finally, the original drawing is refined, and more thoroughly worked in charcoal and pastel. This final step adds a sense of movement and an energetic layering of color.

There are many technical influences on my work, ranging from the use of color, light and line by Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thibaud and other California painters, to the pastel work of French and American Impressionists such as Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. The influences of the child as subject matter, I suppose, seems obvious, however there is a tendency toward “objectifying” the child by 19^th and early 20^th century painters that I am trying to work against. One need only refer to the “porcelain doll” portraits by Renoir and his contemporaries to view children depicted as sweet, beautiful objects rather than people. There is a balance I try to portray, between the natural naïveté inherent in all children, and a strong sense of individuality that each subject demands.

So, I have multiple objectives that I try to achieve with my paintings. One is to create an accomplished or "realistic" representation of the figure and portrait. Another is to avoid making derivative impressionist work, and instead to create modern images of children that speak evocatively to viewers through effects of light, complexities of color and dynamic compositions. A third intention is to avoid the trap of making “cute” portraits of “other people’s children”. While I am trying to depict the beauty of every child, I want to avoid objectifying them, and instead attempt to describe a moment of childhood, to which, hopefully, viewers can relate.

Click to see Heather’s Current Exhibitions