Artist Statement

Painting the landscape enables me to create artworks that combine my visual and experiential perception of a specific location. Being aware of – and open to – the phenomenological aspects of the landscape allows the work to manifest inner reflections of this outer attentiveness. My concentration is on the impression of place. I find the essential characteristics of a place in order to show my perception of reality. My paintings are about an envelope of light, a unifying color to suggest light and atmosphere. The act of working in the studio differs from observation in that I use my personal intuition and interpretation to make sense of the reality I experienced. Recently I have been looking out from a skyscraper observatory, allowing me to observe different aspects of atmosphere and light from a higher vantage point. From this height I can view the distant forms on the horizon, the observatory allows me to gaze at vast space. My paintings of the city are about a particular time and place in which I observed the city. 

View Heather’s website

“Heather observes the subtle light and the gentle movement of form through the Seattle landscape. Her drawings and paintings from the Columbia Center Tower have been composed and re-drawn, built up and wiped away, exposing the residue and changing atmosphere of the image. The slight shifting color temperature reveals masses of buildings turning their facades to the horizon.”

– Ann Gale, Professor of Painting + Drawing

Committee

• David Brody (Painting + Drawing)
• Ann Gale (Painting + Drawing)
• Zhi Lin (Painting + Drawing)
• Helen O’Toole (Painting + Drawing)
• Narangkar Glover
• Ryan Weatherly