RECENT PAINTINGS BY JULIE HEFFERNAN

RESOURCE PACKET

ABOUT THE ARTISTThree weeks after she finished the works for When the Water Rises: Recent paintings by Julie Heffernan, Baton Rouge had unprecedented rains, dropping two feet of water in forty-eight hours. The rain brought catastrophic flooding, lending the exhibition – curated by Louisiana State University Museum of Art – an air of prophecy. Through this exhibition, Heffernan articulates her need to provoke thought and change. She considers the promotion of awareness and action the ultimate duty of an artist.

Heffernan emotionally portrays figures being called to action. These satirically charged social protagonists are determined to survive and save the planet. They are women of action: we see them building, gathering, and cleaning up. (Kelley, 2017). Too busy to look at the viewer, they are diligently tending various fires, watering, hoisting, pulling, and dragging. They are bound by their botanical architecture with belts and backpacks made of rope. They carry new world necessities like broken idols, endangered creatures, and historical paintings that will all be used to rework and invent a new purpose. “I believe in powerful imagery that can manifest truth and change minds.” (Heffernan, 2017). Heffernan points a finger at metaphysical issues by showing a delicate post-apocalyptic world. Her cast of characters now roam a landscape where all is not well in the “madness of man-made calamities.” (Heffernan, 2017) Heffernan addresses environmental degradation with profound visual activism. Her work is breathtaking and fulfilling at the same time making it easy to suspend disbelief in the face of widespread pretense.

In the exhibition catalogue for Heffernan’s solo exhibition at P.P.O.W. Gallery, Sky is Falling (2013), Rebecca Solnit described Heffernan’s work as “a new kind of history painting.” Her use of traditional materials, careful chiaroscuro (the use of light and shadow in drawing and painting), and lush depiction of trees speak of a prior age. Heffernan’s creative process begins with image streaming. “It’s not like daydreaming or remembering. They are spontaneous pictures that I just sit back and watch. And then I’ll fall asleep. When I wake up, it’s at the point where the images start to stream in, and out of those, I’ll usually ‘see’ something.” (West, 2011).

Heffernan sees her work as a series of pictures within pictures – “a cornucopia of pockets” as she calls it. (Heffernan, 2017). She treats each element as if it were its own landscape. She looks for energy in the detailed mini landscapes of rocks, furs, and trees. Drawn in by the initial beauty of the work the viewer is treated with secret moments and “wild cards” that spool out of the paintings in layers. By paying attention to complexity, Heffernan attempts connection with the world and its populace. She links the laborious process of painting in ornate detail with the core of her message: the care of the world.

Julie Heffernan was born in 1956, in Peoria, Illinois. She moved to Northern California with her family at an early age. Raised Catholic, Heffernan found herself enthralled with religious imagery. Sitting in church she would gaze at pictures of saints and fantasize how they would move and interact. She attended University of California at Santa Cruz, graduating with a B.F.A. in painting and printmaking in 1981, and received her M.F.A. from Yale School of Art in painting and printmaking in 1985. Heffernan currently lives in New York City and works as a professor of fine arts at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Represented by P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York, Catherine Clark in San Francisco, and Mark Moore in Culver City, CA, Heffernan creates sensuous figurative paintings, and stages narratives of surreal environments. Her construction is flawless with a “seamless finished product.“ (West, 2011).

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CLIMATE CHANGE& ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISMMore than anything else, Heffernan’s work concerns itself with issues of climate change, awareness, and activism. “I needed to do this, to imagine another way, give myself a hose to stop all the burning,” Heffernan says, “to calm my fury at what I hear and read every day about the realities of climate change and its effects on people all over the globe.” (Seed, 2013). These paintings, while intrinsically beautiful and extensively detailed, act as warnings in their portrayal of an irreparably damaged, flooded earth. Technology is sparse in these symbolic visions, and humans struggle directly against the newly unbalanced forces of nature. She paints the disasters and their debris, and she lists climate change deniers by name.

Heffernan gives us a humanity that has reinvented its relationship to the environment. She tells us, “My figures end up being engulfed in their circumstances. These days I find them engaged in building things, or cleaning up, the way I wish I could clean up our earth.” Instead of a disposition towards dominations, her human subjects possess an attitude of cooperation and resiliency. They do the slow, every day work required to live in this world, mirrored by Heffernan’s thoughtful rendering of it. “I wish I could build wind energy kites,” she says. “But I can imagine them and paint them.” (Samet, 2015).

Self Portrait as Castaway, 2016. Oil on canvas. 68 x 60 inches.Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

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High School & Middle School

• What role can Heffernan’s paintings play in the efforts of environmental activists? In what ways can these paintings affect change? How do they inspire you to affect change?

• Do these paintings seem more politically relevant, or more enduring and timeless? What in the paintings make you say so?

• What distinguishes Heffernan’s landscapes from others you are familiar with?

Elementary School

• What are the people in these paintings doing?

• Do you think Heffernan’s paintings show our world in the future, or a different world altogether? Why?

• Why do you think the artist included people in her paintings? How would it change the way you think of her paintings if there were no people?

Self Portrait as Hive Minder, 2016. Oil on canvas. 60 x 84 inches.Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Sky Burial, 2016. Oil on canvas. 54 x 100 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

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SELF-PORTRAITUREHeffernan titled most of the work in this exhibition as a self-portrait of some kind: Self Portrait as Red Tent, Self-Portrait on the Brink, Self-Portrait as Great Acceleration. Each time Heffernan portrays herself, she shows her personal investment in the issues of her paintings. She admits her own failings and renews her commitment to address difficult topics.

Heffernan talks about her self-portraits as a form of self-care. Heffernan says, “Finding form, complicated intricate form, for your own experience is essentially making the most exquisite sense of your lousy, boring life, which is the best therapy. I think that is why, as artists, we love our lives even though they are really hard.” (Samet, 2015). Calling these paintings self-portraits unites their foreboding and hopeful aspects. These self-portraits are ways of making meaning, spacious enough for life’s joys and hardships.

By representing her own body, Heffernan pushes back against the idea that female nudes automatically reinforce the notion of male gaze. Discussing her influences, she says:

We see these attributes – holy transfiguration, muscularity, activity – resurface in Heffernan’s work, particularly in Self-Portrait as Fountain Head, and Self-Portrait as Standing my Ground.

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Self Portrait as Fountainhead, 2016. Oil on canvas. 96 x 56 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

“So many…female figures did not primarily exist, to my mind, for anyone’s voyeuristic pleasure, but rather for the access they allowed to a greater depth of women’s experience, as in paintings like Titian’s Mary Magdalene. It tells a story about suffering and how it dis-integrates us, captured in the way Magdalene’s hair transforms into consuming fire. As for Rubens, his female nudes are always depicted as muscular, activated and powerful in their agency, and I always look to them as figures of thrillingly complex emotion…I take my cue from those kinds of great artists, to look with empathy and imagine my way into the struggles the women I paint are having.” (Knudson.)

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Self Portrait as Great Acceleration, 2016. Oil on canvas. 67 x 60 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Self Portrait as Standing My Ground, 2016. Oil on canvas. 68 x 66 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Self Portrait as the Other Thief, Oil on Canvas. 2013. 76 x 96 inches.Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Self Portrait on the Brink, 2013. Oil on canvas. 66 x 68 inches. Courtesy of P.P.O.W.

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High School & Middle School

• How does Heffernan characterize the female figures that are central to many of these paintings? How does the figure relate to the world around her?

• How does Heffernan communicate her understanding of femininity?

• How do the titles of these paintings connect the artist to her work?

Elementary School

• What is a self-portrait? Why do you think artists create self-portraits?

• Some of Heffernan’s works are titled “Self-Portrait”, but don’t have a picture of the artist. Why might the artist call these self-portraits and not include a picture of herself?

• If you were going to create a self-portrait, what would be important for you to include?

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SYMBOLISMParticular images recur throughout Heffernan’s paintings, most notably construction cones, broken branches, and Christmas trees. Each of these visual motifs has the potential to create special significance, especially as they are repeated across multiple paintings. The construction cones, for example, are man-made objects of warning. They could suggest mankind’s ability or inability to respond to impending disasters. Similarly, broken branches illuminate a natural world humans have actively damaged, not merely lived in.

Christmas trees seem more out of place. Kitschy and fragile, they feel like an odd remnant of our civilization to have survived calamitous flooding. Most likely, they were intentionally preserved to ensure certain traditions of family, celebration, and religion could make their way into the future.

Beyond the motifs of broken branches and Christmas trees, Heffernan’s work asks us to look at it through a symbolic lens. Depending on your perspective, central figures in these paintings could symbolize the self, the artist, or the divine feminine. The ubiquitous floods have a literal connection to questions of climate change, but could also symbolize our species’ tendency to encourage calamity, or the rejuvenating effect of a worldwide baptism. Even the light suffused in these paintings could be read symbolically. Heffernan’s light appears to come from within people and from within the natural world, illuminating the spiritual qualities we will need to carry us into the new era. Ultimately, Heffernan’s paintings are flooded with symbolic resonance.

Self Portrait as Red Tent, 2015. Oil on canvas. 54 x 66 inches. Courtesy of P.P.O.W.

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Requiem for Palmyra, 2016. Oil on canvas. 60 x 54.Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Camp Bedlam, 2016. Oil on canvas. 68x104 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery. SYM

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High School & Middle School

• How do symbols change or expand the meaning of a painting?

• How can you tell the difference between a symbolic image and a more literal image?

• What are some other possible explanations for the repetition of the Christmas trees, traffic cones, or broken branches in these paintings?

Elementary School

• What is a symbol? Why do artists use symbols in their work?

• Do you see any symbols in these paintings? What do you think the symbols means? Why?

• Imagine a future you would like to live in. What objects could you use as symbols to help describe that future?

QUESTIONS

COVER: Requiem for Palmyra, 2016. Oil on canvas. 60 x 54 inches. Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

ON VIEW AT THE LSU MUSEUM OF ART MARCH 11SEPTEMBER 17, 2017

Julie Heffernan, Camp Bedlam, 2016, oil on canvas, courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

When the Water Rises is a collaboration between the LSU College of Art + Design, the LSU School of Art and the LSU Museum of Art. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by The Imo N. Brown Memorial Fund in memory of Heidel Brown and Mary Ann Brown, Louisiana CAT, L. Cary Saurage II Foundation and Charles Schwing.

PAULA G. MANSHIP ENDOWED LECTURE WITH JULIE HEFFERNAN

LSU Design Building Auditorium, Room 103March 15, 2017, 56 p.m.

Free to attend

Hear LSU School of Art visiting artist Julie Heffernan discuss her work and the inspiinspiration behind this exhibition. A Q&A

session will follow the lecture. Open to the public.

RECEPTION AND GALLERY TALK WITH JULIE HEFFERNAN

LSU Museum of Art, Fifth floorMarch 16, 2017, 68 p.m.

Free for students and faculty with ID

Get a brief guided tour through When the Water Rises with artist Julie Heffernan at

6:30 p.m., followed 6:30 p.m., followed by a receptionwith light hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar until 8 p.m. Free for members,

$10 for the general public.

BROWN BAG LUNCH ON THE WORK OF JULIE HEFFERNAN

LSU Museum of Art, Third floorApril 5, 2017, 121 p.m.

Free to attend

LSU MOA Curator Courtney Taylor willgive an informal talk on the work of Julie

HeHeffernan and topics represented in When the Water Rises. Attendees can bring their lunch and tour the exhibition

following the discussion.

Additional programs through September will be announced at www.lsumoa.org/julie-heffernan

ON VIEW AT VIRGINIA MOCA SEP 22–DEC 30, 2018

ORGANIZED BY LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART

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Abrahams, M. (June 13, 2015). Julie Heffernan: Pre-Occupations. Retrieved from https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/julie-heffernan-pre-occupations/3215

Artworks for Change. (2018). Julie Heffernon. Retrieved from http://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/julie-heffernan/

Heartney, E. (2017). “Julie Heffernan: Elegy & Eden.” When the Water Rises: RecentPaintings by Julie Heffernan. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

Kelley, K.S. (2017). “A Call to Action.” When the Water Rises: Recent Paintings by Julie Heffernan. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

Knudson, S. For the Love of Painting. A Conversation with Julie Heffernan. Retrieved from http://artpulsemagazine.com/for-the-love-of-painting-a-conversation-with-julie-heffernan

Miller, R. (May, 23, 2017). The water is rising in Julie Heffernan’s painting at the LSUMuseum of Art. Retrieved from: http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/

entertainment_life/arts/article_cf0d1028-3428-11e7-ba54-233d8abc03c5.html

RESOURCES

RECENT PAINTINGS BY JULIE HEFFERNAN

Samet, J. (2015, June). Beer with a Painter: Julie Heffernan. Retrieved from https://hyperallergic.com/73463/beer-with-a-painter-julie-heffernan/

Seed, J. (2013, October). Julie Heffernan:’ Sky is Falling.’ Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/julie-heffernan-the-sky-is- falling_b_4072985.html

Sierzputowski, K. (2016, October). Bright Environmental Paintings Focused on Survival by Artist Julie Heffernan. Retrieved from http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/10/environmental-paintings-by-artist-julie- heffernan/

Solnit, R. (2012). “Dandelion Clocks and Time Bombs.” Sky is Falling, Paintings by Julie Heffernan. Palo Alto, CA: Palo Alto Art Center.

West, L. (December 17, 2011). Julie Heffernan’s Constructions of Self. Retrieved from http://www.escapeintolife.com/art-reviews/julie-heffernans-constructions-of-self/

Zeka, M. (November 2, 2012). Statements. Julie Heffernan. Mark Moore Gallery. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/markmooregallery/docs/statements_16_julie_heffernan.

IN-KIND SUPPORT FROM

MOCA’S E XHIBIT IONS ARE SUPPORTED IN PART BY

Portsmouth Museum and Fine Arts Commission Chesapeake Fine Arts Commission

Richard & Caroline T. Gwathmey Memorial Trust Morningstar Foundation

Bay Mechanical Century Concrete Coastal Virginia Magazine Flagship Visual WHRO