Mary Heebner
Mary Heebner, Intimacy: Drawing with Light, Drawn from Stone, 2017
16 x 17 in.
Anodized aluminum box with carved marble inset, plexiglass easel, 2 small books, portfolio of 13 prints on handmade watermarked paper embellished with graphite or watercolor. One of 20 signed and numbered copies.
Intimacy is a book with roots in the artist's graphite and ink drawings of Roman sculpture. It contains a small accordion fold volume, Marmo, which features prints with a blue tint and a poem by the artist, in English and Italian, about the living quality of marble. A chemise entitled Schizzi, bound in the same style as Marmo, holds a portfolio of thirteen loose prints on Shojoshi paper after the drawings as well. Also featured in the work is a portfolio of graceful figurative watermarks on paper.
Intimacy is housed in a two-piece box of dark grey anodized aluminum with two pieces of carved marble set onto the lid. Inside the box is a tri-part plexiglass enclosure that holds the portfolio and the two small volumes. The plexiglass enclosure folds up into a viewing stand that allows light to shine through the watermarked papers in the portfolio, and is the origin of the book’s subtitle.
Mary Heebner, Unearthed, 2011
12 5/8 x 12 5/8 in.
Wooden box with travertine marble lid, printed book with leather spine and hand painted covers, softcover illustrated book. One of 20 signed and numbered copies.
This work was inspired by the artist’s travels to the mountains of Patagonia where she explored sites of geological and archaeological interest. In Last Hope Sound, at the opening of which sits Puerto Natales, Chile, she viewed indigenous Mapuche ceremonial vessels called messen. This experience became the basis for two series of paintings that the artist later made in her studio: Below and Beneath and Unearthed. The present work draws on those series as well as on other sketches the artist made in Patagonia.
This large format book contains hand colored digital prints of the Unearthed series of paintings. Also included are two prints of paintings from the Below and Beneath series. Hidden below the larger book, and appropriately called Notes from Below, is a small format chapbook containing the artist’s thoughts and poetry as well as other prints based on ink and graphite sketches of vessels with unique washes.
Mary Heebner, The Tragic History of Hamlet: An Artist's Interpretation, 2008
12 5/8 x 16 1/2 in.
Twenty pigment prints from paintings by the artist, bound script of the play printed by letterpress on handmade paper, archival box with red leather spine. One of 20 numbered and signed copies.
Begun as a series of collage paintings on paper, this book interprets Shakespeare's Hamlet through an emotional lens: a visual response focusing on the female characters Ophelia and Gertrude. While Heebner’s contemporary paintings capture a William-Blake-like other worldly feel, they also have a strict and consistent aesthetic logic, each featuring a triptych format with a light, often figurative section on the left, a dark, heavily textured section in the middle, and a more colorful section on the right. The paintings also contain a printed text from Shakespeare that has been layered over and then scraped back, creating a palimpsest-like atmosphere of dark mystery through the fragments of language and image.
Mary Heebner, Silent Faces / Angkor
4 1/2 x 22 1/8 x 9 1/2 in.
Red cedar box containing 1 letterpress printed book, 4 scrolls (37" x 18" each), 2 accordion fold books, and 1 booklet. One of 25 numbered and signed copies.
Silent Faces / Angkor is a work that grew out of the artist's visit to the temple complex of Angkor in Cambodia. While there she made sketches and took photos of the ancient stone carvings on the temple walls and later created a series of collages and paintings based on these images. From those artworks, Heebner developed this multi-faceted, multi-media assemblage.
