Ellen Heck:
Prints
January 4-26, 2025
Closing Reception and Artist Talk on Saturday January 25 // 4-7pm.
Talk at 5pm.
In this exhibition, both figurative and abstract works explore a panorama of perspectives. Life-size monochromatic aquatint portraits of children in the process of having their faces painted hone in on varying expressions of almost religious deliverance at known and unknown hands holding tools of transformation. In this series of varied editions, Being Painted, each child’s face is individually painted in different familiar motifs. Of these, the show features masked adventurers, clowns, and starry-eyed dreamers. Heck is interested in the variety of expressions and levels of self-consciousness of children being painted, and conversely, the focus and lack of self-consciousness of children who are painting themselves.
Another on-going series included in the exhibition are Heck’s large abstract works from the Color Wheels series. Multiple panels from a single origin accumulate to resemble kaleidoscopic landscapes, each one repeatedly referencing an image that no longer exists in its original form. The resultant composite piece explores self-similarity and collective growth.
In concurrence with Print Austin, the show as a whole uses the repetition and variation of printmaking to tell stories of transformation.
