“Cut, slash, crunch, and weave. These words encapsulate the fluidity of motion that defines the work of Los Angeles-based artist Shelley Heffler. Growing up in the Bronx, Heffler’s experiences navigating the subways of New York City root her artistic practice. The traces of transit maps are visible in the lines and forms in the composition of her work. Heffler’s recent work, We Are Home (2020), is an assorted community quilt project portraying visual representations of home, highlighting the humanist aspect of her work. Heffler, in her work, often uses glimpses and collages of various colors and textures to create an urban aesthetic.

Heffler’s work combines waste and other byproducts of consumerism meshed with paint to create a trance-like cartographic composition, manifesting into the landscape of an altered world. With We Are Home, Heffler utilizes her artistic process in quilt-making, soliciting local residents to submit a 12” x 12” quilt block using objects and inspiration from their home. These assorted squares are then curated into the community quilt. This end product addresses the feeling of isolation during the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing the thoughts of what home means to oneself. “

​ABOUT SHELLEY HEFFLER

Heffler’s flourishing art practice is informed by a passion for maps which began as a young girl navigating the subways of NYC. Always viewing the world with wonder, she created an internal dialogue of her thoughts and feelings which made their way to an artistic voice. She is inspired by cartography as well as digital imagery from NASA, topography, and a deep concern for the interconnectedness of the world in terms of human values and experiences. Often, using a thick application of acrylic paint she covers her canvases with gestural brushwork creating richly layered surfaces that conceal and reveal the underlying history of paint application. The urge to morph some of her canvases into sculptural forms has a connection to pushing the boundaries of what is considered painting. Many of her works focus on the shifting boundaries of land and land use. In her words, "My sculptures are about confronting the unsettling engagement of human alterations to land and earth. I am inspired by science and ecological systems that represents an interconnectedness in the world we share."