ARTIST BIO
Heidi Brueckner is a Professor of Art at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA where she has taught for over 23 years. She holds a BA in Art and a BA in Art History from University of CA, Santa Cruz; and an MFA in Painting from University of Kansas.
In 2020-21, Brueckner won 12 first place awards among others, which included the Italian International Prisma Art Prize and the Faber Birren Color Award. She was also a finalist for the 2022 7th Edition Boynes Emerging Artist Award. During the last few years, she has participated in over 100 group shows and has had 15 solo and small group exhibits. Her work has been written about in publications and online art sources such as Art Seen Magazine, All She Makes Magazine, Visionary Art Collective, Create! Magazine, The Huts Magazine, ILikeYourWorkPodcast.com, GearBoxGallery.com, 48 Hills News, NotRealArt.com, Subo Art Magazine, The Pacific Sun, and the Vassar Review.
Recent 2022-23 solo shows include Buckham Gallery in Flint, MI; Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA; Gearbox Gallery in Oakland, CA; East Central College Gallery in Union, MO; Crossing Arts in Brainerd, MN; and Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, NY. Upcoming solo exhibitions in 2023 25 include; Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, MD; Crary Gallery in Warren, PA; Grants Pass Art Museum in Grants Pass, OR; Dalton Gallery in Rock Hill, SC; and Thelma Sadoff Arts Center in Fond du Lac, WI.
In August 2023, she will attend the Wildacres Residency in Little Switzerland, NC.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Inherently, we are interested in observing others as a way of understanding ourselves. My work is inspired by this curiosity and allows the viewer to participate. These works are individualistic narratives which explore personage through self-presentation, facial expressions, and gesture. They often inspect the under-revered, and appreciate the subject’s presence and dignity, giving pause to honor the person.
The aesthetic is assertive and the color is divorced from naturalism. Skin color is therefore eliminated which for me a hopeful metaphor that society aspires to, and achieves equality among races and other human differences. The work is meant to honor the entirety of humanity—not just one section of the population or kind of person.
With some of these works, I've been experimenting with texture and the physical quality of the surface through using alternative recycled materials such as pieced-together bubble mailers and paper bags. I've found them to be exciting and sturdy surfaces and believe these media add a uniquely interesting and environmentally friendly component to the work.
Using and combining color and pattern is euphoric to me and comes very naturally and instinctively. I have a visceral, almost synesthesia-like reaction to it in that I can nearly taste and hear it, because the visual reaction is so strong. It’s as if one sense gets overloaded and spills into another.
Because my work is about humankind’s understanding of itself, studying human nature, and its relationship to storytelling, this is why I tend to envelop my portraits with color and pattern because the work venerates the individual with the ultimate sentiment that we try to live in a more socially and environmentally just world, encouraging people to appreciate and love one another, and to in turn understand the importance of social justice and respect for our earth and all its creatures.
Oakland, CA / United States
