HEATHER WILCOXON, ARTIST

Heather lives and works in the Bay Area. She received her BFA and  MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute .  She has exhibited widely, including the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, The DiRosa Center for Contemporary Art,  The Boulder Museum of Contemporary of Art,  The American University Museum, in Washington DC., The Triton Museum and The Fresno Art Museum.

Her work is in several permanent collections  including The Fine Arts Museum, Auchenbach Foundation of Graphic Arts in San Francisco, the De Saisset Museum, The Fresno Art Museum, and The Triton Museum.

She has received several fellowship awards. Two from the Pollock/ Krasner Foundation in New York. Three painting grants from the Buck Foundation in Marin County.  A residency fellowship from the Djerassi Artist Residency Program. A grant from the Tree of Life Foundation in North Carolina and The Distinguished Women in the Arts Award from the Fresno Art Museum.

 ARTIST STATEMENT

 My paintings are rich in flavor. They are sweet and sour, plentiful with stuffed drippings. Rough, thick, salty and raw.

Emotion is truth, which is what I put into my paintings. If something upsets me, I paint about it. I have to feel deeply about something in order for it to matter to me.  Whether it’s political, social, environmental or personal. Without these feelings, I have nothing to say. 

My practice has evolved over the years. . Early on I would collage drawings and incorporate quirky, dark cartoonish imagery into my paintings. But as I matured, I let that process go and just use paint and paint alone.  I work in a series.   Sometimes lasting several years.  Because I live on the water, I am surrounded by many boats. So that form has entered my paintings in varies ways.  During the pandemic I worked on a series of portraits with masks.  As well as a series I call, Home Alone. Those works dealt with our isolation plus our dealings with global warming. 

My paintings involve layering sometimes over older works. The richer the surface the better. Drawing is also important to my practice. I draw almost everyday. It keeps my skills sharp as well as my imagination flowing and alive.   I am always discovering new ways of applying the paint. I have often  thought that I am a versatile painter because I have moved around in  both  styles and content.  However that has never bothered me because I have  felt that it is  important  to keep challenging myself in my work.