Heather Guertin

Heather Guertin’s practice engages the relationship between observation and imaginative expression. Her paintings contain a diverse variety of mark making and reference a large collection of visual subject matter. She uses abstraction in her work as a passageway to better understand form. Each translation from image to paint in the work is a subjective decision. Guertin’s gestural mark-making ties different fragments of imagery together and transforms it into a new whole. Through this process, the painting finds its own logic, making it difficult to locate the original source. This combination of observation and invention results in a tension between illusionistic space and the flatness of pure color. Through her painterly approach, she achieves an autonomous physicality, rendering the works into psychological and imaginative paintings. Heather Guertin (b. 1981 Worcester, Massachusetts) received her Master of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent exhibitions include a two person exhibition at Kurimanzutto, Mexico City and a solo exhibition at JDJ Ice House in Garrison, NY, Two Thousand Eighteen, Brennan & Griffin, NY, Aluminum Linoleum, Proyectos Monclova, MX and The Whole, Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Group exhibitions include Grouper, Broadway, NY, How to Call the Spirits, Chapter, NY, East Side to the West Side, Flag Art Foundation, NY, and Addicted to Highs and Lows, Bortolami, NY. She has performed in locations such as White Columns in New York and in participation with the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2013, Guertin published a novella titled Model Turned Comedian with Social Malpractice and Publication Studio, which was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp. In 2015 a monograph of her works was published by Hassla Books. Guertin lives and works in upstate New York.