JULIE HEFFERNAN Artist Statement:

I started making art more than thirty years ago in the waning days of Pop and Greenberg when so much of the painting that was critically acclaimed seemed to be about coolness or strategy; and I eventually went my own way—going forward by looking back to the large body of historical imagery that was still as ripe and potent as ever. Seen through the lens of feminism, those early paintings had an erotic charge that I thought could be mined for my own contemporary purposes. What kept me interested in painting throughout the ironic 1980s were the pictures that streamed into my brain just as I was falling asleep. They were like movies in my head that I would close my eyes and watch. I began jotting down in paint some of the "stills" from these mind-films, and then using them in larger still-life paintings as mini projections onto the fruit. I came to see these thought bubbles as accumulated pictures of an interior self: as a way into painting a different kind of self-portrait, one more akin to a truer self, conceived without the distortion of a mirror.

Gradually I was able to pierce the space of the still-life and find landscapes that mirrored a similar interiority. The greater spatiality of the landscapes invited me to enter those worlds more and more deeply, viewing them as a sort of quintessential feminine space. After awhile I came to understand that this "image streaming"—a sort of mental montage—as well as patterns I would find in the landscapes, were making a peculiar kind of sense out of my experiences, giving me the components in abstract form to find out what mattered to me and tell myself my own story.

 I became very interested in what narrative painting could mean in an age where we look to film and video for our visual stories. Unlike film, which happens in time, narrative painting depends on association and simultaneity to provide a sense of momentum where separate visual events acquire a connected life. I was composing my paintings in what I thought of as a filmic way by obliging the eye to scan, move through pathways that can take the viewer into a variety of different realms with different focal points. Something story-like would come out of this deepening focus when events in the paintings, assorted details, would gather strength from each other as the associations became richer and more rousing.

Throughout the years my work has always been an attempt to see more deeply into my myriad selves, hence the titles: Self-Portrait as Wreck, Self-Portrait as Great Heap, etc. I have looked for forms and structures that can contain complexity—whether through buildings with many cubicles, or trees with many nesting boughs—to function as rooms of the psyche where my imagery can take root in substantial ground. Through the last decade I have become interested in how contemporary popular depictions of women have changed: we've seen a return to pre-feminist tropes, images that are either simplistic or deprecatory, or associated with titillation. In my work I am calling upon a secondary experience of titillation, understanding that it is through the senses that we find our paths to reverence. I want my figures to embody the complexity of women's experience from the bloom of our early ripeness through our inevitable slow decline, which has its fascination—and weird beauty—too. The attractiveness of the figures reflects the attraction I have to the complex worlds underlying them, understanding that accepted norms of beauty can lead viewers to an acceptance of more complicated imagery below the surface, as the great heaps abound, swirl and find their balance.

Akin to Magical Realism, Julie Heffernan's lush self-portraiture utilizes a myriad of art historical references to present a sensual interior narrative, a self-allegory whose half- hidden political agenda is the literal background of the paintings. The dark, Grimm fairy tale-like undercurrent transforms her aristocratic, operatic portraits into a contemporary vanitas or memento mori, acting as both a stylized fantasy and a Bosch-like warning.

Heffernan (b. 1956, Illinois) received her MFA from Yale School of Art (CT), and has been exhibiting widely for the past two decades. Selected exhibitions include those at The Korean Biennial (Korea), Weatherspoon Art Gallery (NC), Tampa Museum Of Art (FL), Knoxville Museum Of Art (TN), Columbia Museum Of Art (SC), Milwaukee Art Museum (WI), The New Museum (NY), The Norton Museum (FL), The American Academy Of Arts And Letters (NY), Kohler Arts Center (WI), The Palmer Museum Of Art (PA), National Academy Of Art (NY), Mcnay Art Museum (TX), Herter Art Gallery (MA), Mint Museum (NC) and Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VA), Oklahoma City Museum of Art (OK) among numerous others. Her work has also been acquired by many of the institutions listed above. The artist is also a Professor of Fine Arts at Montclair State University.