Heidi Brueckner: An Exploration of Humankind
Oakland-based artist Heidi Brueckner draws upon human interaction and behavior to serve as the driving force of her portraiture series. To depict her subjects, Heidi often uses bold, vivid colors, unique patterns and designs, and recycled materials to add depth and texture. Through expressive brushstrokes and saturated hues, Heidi is able to pay homage to each person that she paints.
Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
I am a California native and have been living in Oakland, CA since 1997. Growing up, art was always interesting and profound to me, but not until after visiting the museums of Europe as a college student did I decide that art was what I wanted to “do” with my life. I wound up earning a BA in both Art and Art History at UC Santa Cruz and an MFA in Painting from the University of Kansas. I also studied for a year at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
At the moment, it is all about people. However, I have always responded to color and repetitive pattern, whether found in nature or in art and design. Human behavior and interaction spark my interest and compel me to work with social and political commentary. I especially enjoy nodding to the margins of society and contemplating the precarious and dark aspects of humankind.
How has your work shifted and evolved over time?
For some years, I did a lot of figurative-based allegorical works about morality and cultural norms. I included copious amounts of pattern, symbolism, and ornamentation which referenced art and culture from around the world.
Those interests then lead me to work on a series of 26 mixed media paintings of “archetypal monsters”, which spoofed an alphabet book. Here, I was quite influenced by non-Western depiction of mythical creatures. The series was then made into an actual book titled “Monstersbet.”
Within the last couple of years, I have come back to figurative work, and particularly to portraiture. I think of my portraits as individualistic narratives that explore personage through self-presentation, facial expressions, and gesture. The work often inspects the under-revered, and appreciates the subject’s presence and dignity, giving pause to honor the person.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
I teach Art full time at a college in the Bay Area. My days are drastically different because I can get swamped with work duties but then I also get the luxury of having some good chunks of time off. I can spend anywhere from several hours to 20 minutes a day, though I do try to get into the studio pretty much every day.
Though I still have kids at home, they have now grown more independent; and now that my teaching career is well established, I am able to dedicate a lot more physical and mental energy to thinking about and doing art. I am always excited to be in the studio and find that the ideas and the painting process both flow.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
The pandemic has been the biggest thing to impact the work recently. It has been a defining and universal experience, and creatively explosive for me personally. I switched to working pretty much solely on portraiture because time with friends and loved ones has been precious or limited and the calling to capture them has been strong. It has also become important to include people I have met through traveling. I miss people and feel the need to study their faces.
How has Instagram impacted your art career?
It’s been great. I find it to be an ultra-fast and convenient way to research what kind of programing the multitudes of existing galleries have. It’s so easy to discover countless inspirational artists too, which of course affects my work for the better. I have made a lot of connections, one of them being VAC.
What are your future goals and aspirations?
I am very interested in multiculturalism in my current work. I have a pretty assertive aesthetic and I view that to be a kind of “equalizer” in terms of the way people are depicted. My color is divorced from naturalism and therefore skin color is in a way taken out of the equation. I want to honor the entirety of humanity with my portraits—not just one section of the population or one kind of person.
Follow Heidi on Instagram: @heidibrueckner
Website: www.heidibrueckner.com