Exhibitions

Storied

May 25 - June 25, 2017   |  Project Space

Andrea Joyce Heimer

Press Release

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to announce Storied, its first exhibition with Andrea Joyce Heimer.

Heimer’s densely populated paintings are autobiographical ruminations inspired largely by personal experience. The artist, who was a fiction writer before she was a painter, starts her pieces by writing their descriptive and playful titles. Confessional and diaristic, these highly narrative works often detail scenes from Heimer’s adolescence in western Montana, but also encompass events past and present.

Frequently sited in suburbia, Heimer’s paintings foreground the magical elements of everyday life. One such mystical experience is the Mariana UFO incident in Great Falls, Montana, during which some of the first ever footage of an alleged UFO was filmed. Whether depicting UFOs or teenagers getting ready for prom, Heimer aims to foreground how human connection is formed through bizarre experiences in the everyday routine.

Heimer’s almost pictographic work draws inspiration from other story-based forms of art that shirk the illusion of space and instead render figures and objects as flat pattern. Influences include Ancient Greek Black- and Red-Figure vases; Medieval illuminated manuscripts and bestiaries; and Persian miniatures. Her work also shares an affinity with certain traditions of self-taught art including the work of Henry Darger, Horace Pippin, and Grandma Moses.

Andrea Joyce Heimer (b. 1981, Great Falls, Montana) lives and works in Ferndale, WA. She will receive an MFA from the New Hampshire Institute of Art in July 2017. Her work has been included in solo exhibitions at Hometown, New York; Antonio Colombo Gallery, Milan, Italy; and CG2 Gallery, Nashville, among others. Heimer has shown in group exhibitions at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK; Athen B. Gallery, Oakland; Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles; Maxwell Colette Gallery, Chicago; Shooting Gallery, San Francisco; and Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, among others. She has been awarded the 5790 Award as well as residencies at idrawalot Collective in Berlin and the Cornish Collage of the Arts in Seattle.