My name is Caitlin Heffernan and I am an artist based in Brighton, UK. To get in touch please email: info@caitlinheffernan.co.uk
My practice spans painting, installation and soft sculpture.
I am concerned with natural and wild spaces, the luscious and sensuous world, patterns and organic spheres. The paintings feature uncanny nature, three headed animals, earthly delights and are my attempt to be with nature. To breathe and be within, to fly high above and observe.
Ariel images of the earth, maps and plans of wetlands have inspired the paintings as well as my own experience of walking in and around the wetlands centre which left me with no clear view, and a feeling of no way out. They are sometimes claustrophobic, yet rich with colour and pattern saturation. The paintings refer to a constant state of flux, unsettled land and water, for unsettling times.
The works have been made in response to the uncertainty and change that so many of us have been experiencing but it also inspired by the forms and beautiful chaos of the natural world.
Developed alongside a curatorial project exploring the climate crisis and the role of wetlands, the works speak of love, loss and longing.
In my site-specific installations and projects I have looked at the history and researched around over-looked and hidden histories to create poetic responses.
Biography
Caitlin Heffernan is an artist working across painting and installation. She has studied at Falmouth School of Art, Winchester School of Art, and at Konstfack University, as part of a research lab, Stockholm, Sweden.
She has been awarded commissions with Metal Arts and Somerset Artworks and selected for residencies both nationally and internationally. She has been part of the Jerwood Drawing Prize and exhibited nationally and internationally. She is co-director and curator of Unravelled an innovative organisation creating site-specific exhibitions across different spaces, recent projects have included working with The National Trust and The London Wetland Centre.
RESIDENCIES
2017 Artist in residence at Chard Museum
2009 Triangle Arts Trust, international artists’ workshop, Nigeria.
2005 International Artist Fellowship, Arts Institute, Prague.
2004 Braziers International Artist’s Workshop, Oxfordshire, UK
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
2019 Research Lab: Crafts in Historic Houses, Stockholm, Sweden.
2017 Muse:Makers in Museums, commissioned by Somerset Art Works
2015 Commission by Metal for Harvest Festival in Peterborough, with lead artists Studio Orta 2015 In-Site site-specific commission, Rochester, Kent
2014 Letters Home, Hoodwink, site-specific response to Horsmonden, Kent
2014 Unravelling Uppark, Uppark, Unravelled
2013 Unravelling the Vyne, The Vyne, Unravelled
2012 Unravelling Nymans, Nymans House and Gardens, Unravelled
2010 Unravelling the Manor House, Preston Manor Brighton, Unravelled
2007 Comfort Zones touring exhibition curated by Oriel Davies Gallery
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Wetlands Unravelled, The London Wetland Centre, Barnes.
2019 Entanglements, Konstkraft, Ljusne, Sweden
2019 Entanglements, Hallwyska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
2018 Muse: Makers in Museums, Museum of Somerset
2017 Present Tense, curated by Lucy Day, Phoenix Brighton.
2017 Red, The Grange, Rottingdean, Brighton.
2015 Leaving Home, Contemporary Applied Arts, London.
2014 Unravelling Uppark, Unravelled, Uppark, West Sussex
2014 Letters Home, Gun & Spitroast pub & Horsmonden Social Club, Kent 2013 Craft Emergency Open, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth
2013 Unravelling the Vyne, Unravelled, The Vyne, Hampshire
2012 Unravelling Nymans, Unravelled, Nymans House and Gardens 2011 Shifting Boundaries, House Festival, Phoenix Brighton
2010 Lost in Translation? Riverside Studios, London
2010 Dream Home, Phoenix Brighton Gallery, Brighton
2008 I am not I: pity the tale of me curated by Robert Lowe part of www.axisweb.org.uk
2008 That’s Entertainment...Off-site project curated by Cathy Lomax, Transition Gallery London as part of Whitstable Biennial,
2008 Comfort Zones Oriel Davis Gallery group show touring to: Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight and Bury St. Edmunds Gallery
2007 Comfort Zones Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales, touring to Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, James Hockey Galleries, Farnham
2006 Jerwood Drawing Prize , What Happens When Everything Is Reduced to Ones and Zeros? Pearlfisher Gallery, London. 2005 Sussex Open ‘Words-Imagination, Fantasy and Tales’ Brighton Museum.
2004 Perspective 2004 Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast curator Vittorio Urbani
AWARDS
2019 Scholarship from Konstfack University of Arts & Design, Stockholm, Sweden.
2019 Estrid Ericssons Scholarship towards publication of Research Lab.
2019 Arts Council Grant for Paradox The London Wetland Centre.
2014 Arrivals & Departures, travel grant from Farnham Maltings for R&D visit to New York City. 2008 Arts Council Individual Award.