About Heather
Artist Biography
Heather Keller (she/her) is an American artist and creative facilitator currently living and working in Northern California. Inspired by craft and textile art and the women artists and makers who came before her, she uses paint and canvas to celebrate and transform the shapes and patterns found in these traditional arts. Sometimes fun, sometimes serious, she creates art to spread joy but also as a form of activism and a means to challenge traditional ideas of what constitutes fine art. Her artwork is a part of private collections worldwide.
Heather earned a studio art degree from California State University, Chico in 2012 but took some years off from her art practice while she pursued a career in museum education. She returned to a regular art practice in 2019 and has since been working part-time as an artist and art educator, facilitating tours, workshops, and events in various museums, schools and community venues. She believes boldly in the idea that art is for everyone and works to empower people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to be creative and celebrate art in all its forms.
Artist Statement
Inspired by women artists and makers, I infuse the shapes, patterns, and palettes of quilts, weavings, and other craft arts into my paintings. Though originally taken by their visual aspects (pattern, shape, color), the deeper I dove into these art forms, the more inspired I became by the makers themselves, and the way they join in community to create and share their stories through patterning, weaving, and quilting.
In this vein, I use shapes and patterns to create an abstract language that expresses themes of community, friendship, feminism, activism, nature, intersectionality, and much more. Sometimes a joyful celebration of nature, other times a politically charged statement, my artworks tell stories and help make sense of the world around us.
The techniques I use to create my works aim to challenge traditional ideas about what constitutes ‘fine’ art. Being first and foremost a painter, I begin with this medium, dyeing the canvas with acrylic washes or creating patterns and shapes with thicker layers of oil. To build texture I cut up my unused paintings or painted canvas scraps and add these on top. Lastly, I often embroider the canvas, further blurring the lines between fine art and craft.
Creative Facilitator
Heather has a decade of experience both leading and assisting informal and formal creative workshops, tours, and events to a range of audiences in various venues from museums to schools. She seeks to facilitate experiences that inspire everyone to get creative and have fun. She creates playful, sensory, and interactive workshops, from under 5s storytelling to still life cocktail drawing, with the aim of helping learners of all ages (from 0 - 100) find art in the everyday world around them, as well as in themselves.
