Heidi Yockey

Biography

Originally from Wisconsin, I’ve lived in Brooklyn for most of my adult life. I paint in two studios - a small space at home in Park Slope, and at BAS, a larger shared space in Sunset Park. Most of my work is done in oil on canvas, sometimes on wood panel. The paintings vary in size from 12x12 inches to 60x60. I like to keep the dimensions within my own arm’s reach.

Thoughts

For me, painting is not saying something, it’s doing something.

I started painting with my hands. I like the direct, intimate contact with paint, the feel of the canvas, turning an organic substance into atmosphere and light. Now I use whatever is at hand to get the paint on the canvas.

A painting can be governed by content or structure. Content can be states of mind- things that concern me will come out in the painting.

“We build upon atmosphere, not story”

- Per Kirkeby

Making a painting seems to be an on-going process of sedimentation, followed by excavation, renewal, sensations condensing. I’m always moving along; each painting is always underway for a long time. I come back to them intermittently Maybe for a year or two. I can’t really do “one, two, a painting”. I try to work quickly but that rarely happens.

Some of my paintings focus on differing qualities of experienced light- the light “just now”, light that reflects, tricks, draws one into it; absent light, the pull of the dark. Light that is sometimes found, sometimes invented.

Openness and uncertainty about what is wanted means each painting is different.