Heather Bentz

Artist Statement

Artifactual​

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Creating is an archeology of experience, an excavation of content to reach the soul of authentic work.

 

My childhood influenced my aesthetic and process. My parents saw potential in what others had discarded. They would improve our home with refurbished furniture or make a pathway with reclaimed bricks. Observations of the transformation of scavenged materials serve as a long-established basis for my work.

 

Inspiration comes in many forms and translates as color, furniture, architecture, pattern and repetition. As a formalist, design and composition are an important means to express visual content. I rely on the grid as a structural, grounding framework. I attend to edges and the shifts in positive/negative space and I embed history into the surface of my work. I am energized by the language of shapes and how it serves as a symbolic index to communicate how I experience the world around me. Process is at the core of what I do—working with my hands, using materials and techniques to explore content which emerges as I work.