Kylie Heidenheimer

Artist Statement

My abstract works on paper which I will be showing at open studios contain dense and atmospheric areas. The latter abut, alternating with one another in varying widths across the support. They also break out into embedded, floating bits. Fitted vertical and diagonal lines are also present. All of these elements align to shape a painting’s space. They do this in manners that both affirm and deny its support.

These inclinations reflect my first and earlier years in Florida and the Midwest. Fall mists in Missouri and Iowa brought sky and ground forth and up. Hovering heat defined Summer. Time and space flipped up. It also pushed down. Hanging, fecund North Florida Spanish Moss alternated dark verticals with light.

The “sounds” in Charles Burchfield’s skies and trees are an influence. Joan Mitchell harkening Van Gogh is too. I sense kinship with Cy Twombly’s baroque and Lee Mullican’s reverberations.

The urge to engage viscerally, via perceiving, unearthing and “pointing to” in painting is buttressed by these forebearers as well as contemporaries Jorinde Voight, Heide Fasnacht and Julie Mehretu.