NEW YORK, NY.- Hollis Taggart announces its representation of artist Hollis Heichemer, whose practice embraces lyrical and vividly colored paintings and works on paper. Heichemer was the subject of a solo exhibition at the gallery’s temporary space at the High Line Nine in April 2019, which included the first public presentation of her drawings. While the gallery remains closed in accordance with current health and safety guidelines, it is planning for upcoming exhibitions of Heichemer’s work, in both its digital and physical spaces, with dates to be announced in the coming months. Heichemer joins the gallery’s rapidly expanding contemporary program, which in recent months has also added artists Dana James, John Knuth, and William Buchina.
In her abstract compositions, Heichemer explores the ways in which light, color, and form can coalesce to evoke a range of emotional, physical, and psychological sensations. Often these sensations relate to particular experiences, making her works both personal and universal in their suggestions of feeling, whether hopeful, joyous, or tragic. Of her work Heichemer has said, “I’m interested in the moment that something shifts. The sudden disruptions, when we’ve moved from one second to the next but in that instant something inexplicable has happened. We’ve seen something; felt something; our imagination has been sparked; a perspective has been altered; and we’ve changed.”
Heichemer is often inspired by her runs through the wooded areas around her home in New Hampshire. Letting her mind wonder, she is equally compelled by the movements and shapes that appear and dissipate in her peripheral vision as she moves through space and by the beauty of the natural environs in which she finds herself. These moments form the basis of her work, which she develops over long stretches of time, adding and removing delicate lines, thick brushstrokes, and wide swaths of color. Together, these elements suggest something stirring below the surface plane—just beyond the viewer’s reach. The contours of representational elements emerge and dissolve in the motion of her gestures, making her works both dynamic and elusive.
“Hollis’s work is as complex as it is beautiful. The use of color and light is quite layered and incredibly compelling. I am always surprised and excited by what I experience in her studio and in her compositions,” said Hollis Taggart. “We were thrilled to host a solo exhibition of Hollis’s work last year, which was very well received by both clients and the general public. Our new relationship builds on the great success of that moment, and we look forward to further engaging audiences with Hollis’s vision and work.”
Heichemer has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Gross McCleaf Gallery and Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia and J. Cacciola Gallery in New York, in addition to her recent show at Hollis Taggart, titled Happenstance. She’s participated in a wide range of group exhibitions, including most recently at Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco. She received her BS from the Ohio University and her MA at Seton Hall University. She was born in Binghamton, New York in 1963 and currently lives in New Hampshire.
