Hollis Heichemer

Hollis Taggart is pleased to present Tumbling Through Space, the New Hampshire-based artist Hollis Heichemer’s third solo show with the gallery. Known for her gestural approach that imbues her paintings with a sense of motion, Heichemer’s latest body of work deepens her exploration of space. The sixteen paintings on view reflect the artist’s ongoing desire to capture sudden experiential shifts and are in part influenced by her recent almost transcendental experience of a concussion. Tumbling Through Space will be on view at Hollis Taggart from May 30 through June 28, 2024, with an opening reception on Thursday, May 30, from 5-8PM.

Heichemer has always been interested in probing the depths of her canvases, and the destabilizing experience of her concussion only intensified her painterly exploration of space. The exhibition’s title, Tumbling Through Space, reflects Heichemer’s experience and the unsettling feeling of being ungrounded; of being both in and outside of space at the same moment. Heichemer’s most recent paintings capture this feeling: the artist’s mastery of the brush creates the sensation that the viewer cannot immediately comprehend the canvases’ depth and is freely floating, perhaps within infinite space, driven by unseen forces. As the artist herself describes, “The paintings in the Tumbling Through Space series are connected to a larger, more infinite space where the viewer can go wherever they want to go, because that space just keeps on going.”

Heichemer’s newest paintings continue her career-long investigation of the depths and gradients of green, but are also marked by unexpected flashes of reds, pinks, and oranges. When asked the extent to which the natural surroundings of her New Hampshire studio impact her work, Heichemer explains that the influence of her environment is subtle. Rather than being directly influenced by the greenery or other colors surrounding her light-filled studio and her New Hampshire environs, she is much more interested in the overall feeling of what it’s like to experience change in nature and its sudden shifts and surprises. “Nature can startle and unsettle you, completely lift you out of where you were, and deposit you elsewhere – it can shift your entire being,” Heichemer says. This shift and moment of surprise as well as the corresponding feeling of untethered space and time travel is what the artist captures so magnificently in Tumbling Through Space. Rather than presenting her experience, though, Heichemer invites the viewer to enter the painting and have their own: “I’m not grabbing you and telling you to pay attention to this or that because I feel that’s what you should be doing. Instead, I’m opening you up to what already exists within you. With these paintings, you reflect on your own experience.”

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Hollis Heichemer was born in Binghamton, New York in 1963. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Gross McCleaf and Rosenfeld Galleries in Philadelphia and J. Cacciola Gallery in New York. She has participated in a wide range of group exhibitions, including most recently at Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco. She lives and works in New Hampshire.

For more information about Hollis Heichemer: Tumbling Through Space, please contact us at info@hollistaggart.com or +1 212.628.4000.

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