From left to right, "In The Summer Of 1989 Mr. McManus Cut Down A Rosebush That Was Growing Directly On The Border Between The McManus’s Back Yard And The Black’s Back Yard. The Resulting Donnybrook Was The Most Brutal Things Us Kids Had Ever Seen In Real Life. Years Later I Figured Out The Fight Wasn’t Really About Roses", "On Tuesday, July 1, 1980, In Billings,Montana, Which Is In The Southern Quadrant Of The State, It Was 70 Degrees Which Is Hot Enough To Make Most People Stay Inside In The Afternoon Except Maybe Kids, And Being Close To The Fourth Of July The Kids Would Have Been Lighting Fireworks And Watching Them Pop And Sizzle Into The Big Blue Sky Over The Peaks Of The Bighorn Mountains Like Man-Made Comets Or Magic Spells. Just South Of Town The Heat Would Have Left Two Kids Looking For A Shady Place To Kiss, Which Would Lead Them To Pictograph Cave, A Sacred Site Excavated By Archaeologists In The 1930's Where 106 Pictographs Were Found, Some As Old As 2000 Years, Whose Origins Still Leave Everyone Guessing Because Generations Of Native Americans Have Added Onto The Existing Pictures Again And Again So That The Stories Of Old Battles Intersect With The New, Confusing History, And Maybe It Was These Things A Slight Girl With Green Eyes And Straw-Colored Hair Who Liked To Draw And Who Was Between Her Eighth And Ninth Grade Year, Was Thinking Of While She Studied A Horse-Shaped Pictograph Under A Boy Who Was A Bit Older, With Brown Hair And Eyes And Who Liked Cars, Who Burst Inside The Girl, Unleashing Bits Of Things And Other Things That Would Become Me, Already Unwanted. Or Maybe The Girl Was Thinking Of The Little Bighorn Monument Where They Had Guzzled Wine Coolers Earlier While Treading The Same Ground Where General George Armstrong Custer Breathed His Last Wicked Breath At The Hands Of Brave Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, And Arapaho Warriors Whose Ghosts The Girl Thought She Could Sense Snaking Through The Bear Grass And Old Graves, And Maybe It Is Because Of These Things That Even Now, 36 Years Later, I Love Horses And Justness And Fireworks And Stories.", "Bored Girls In Painting Class."
Andrea Joyce Heimer2013/2017
15th Istanbul Biennial
Istanbul, Türkiye
In today’s social-media culture of confession, sharing, externalisation and ceaseless commentary, it is easy to lose sight of the complexity of our own private experiences. Andrea Joyce Heimer’s paintings, which are often energetic depictions of interior or domestic settings, evince this complexity with a sense of bleak humour. They do not shy from the awkward, the inexpressible, or the personal, but are honest, thematic assessments of the brutal comedy of human relationships and their unassailable mystery.
Some works present ludic, slightly chaotic interiors, such as one abuzz with brightly coloured patterns, a Tiffany lamp, a speckled carpet, and a number of vibrant objects and plates on the table. Others are cartoonish, garish and comical portrayals of family life. Still others depict larger societal forces, such as a struggle between black and white neighbours. Yet even these larger forces are usually evaluated through the lens of private life: the privacy of bathrooms or bedrooms, of nudes in interior spaces, where feelings of envy arise in relationship to one’s siblings, or feelings of inadequacy come to the fore.
Adolescence, suburban life, alienation, self-consciousness: Heimer – who has a background as a writer – represents these themes in her vivid narrative paintings. She does so with a light hand, and a twodimensionality of depiction that recalls traditional crafts or folk art on the one hand, cartoons on the other. In an age of relentless externalisation, her paintings expose the private feelings that are kept to one’s self and are infrequently or only impartially articulated – even to ourselves. Steeped in a Magical Realist way of looking at the world, her works open up household spaces to the unaired, the awkward, the latent, the unheard or unsayable. While their colourful, pattern-filled exteriors may seem playful, the works also weave dark psychological narratives of buried conflict or antagonism.
- Title: From left to right, "In The Summer Of 1989 Mr. McManus Cut Down A Rosebush That Was Growing Directly On The Border Between The McManus’s Back Yard And The Black’s Back Yard. The Resulting Donnybrook Was The Most Brutal Things Us Kids Had Ever Seen In Real Life. Years Later I Figured Out The Fight Wasn’t Really About Roses", "On Tuesday, July 1, 1980, In Billings,Montana, Which Is In The Southern Quadrant Of The State, It Was 70 Degrees Which Is Hot Enough To Make Most People Stay Inside In The Afternoon Except Maybe Kids, And Being Close To The Fourth Of July The Kids Would Have Been Lighting Fireworks And Watching Them Pop And Sizzle Into The Big Blue Sky Over The Peaks Of The Bighorn Mountains Like Man-Made Comets Or Magic Spells. Just South Of Town The Heat Would Have Left Two Kids Looking For A Shady Place To Kiss, Which Would Lead Them To Pictograph Cave, A Sacred Site Excavated By Archaeologists In The 1930's Where 106 Pictographs Were Found, Some As Old As 2000 Years, Whose Origins Still Leave Everyone Guessing Because Generations Of Native Americans Have Added Onto The Existing Pictures Again And Again So That The Stories Of Old Battles Intersect With The New, Confusing History, And Maybe It Was These Things A Slight Girl With Green Eyes And Straw-Colored Hair Who Liked To Draw And Who Was Between Her Eighth And Ninth Grade Year, Was Thinking Of While She Studied A Horse-Shaped Pictograph Under A Boy Who Was A Bit Older, With Brown Hair And Eyes And Who Liked Cars, Who Burst Inside The Girl, Unleashing Bits Of Things And Other Things That Would Become Me, Already Unwanted. Or Maybe The Girl Was Thinking Of The Little Bighorn Monument Where They Had Guzzled Wine Coolers Earlier While Treading The Same Ground Where General George Armstrong Custer Breathed His Last Wicked Breath At The Hands Of Brave Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, And Arapaho Warriors Whose Ghosts The Girl Thought She Could Sense Snaking Through The Bear Grass And Old Graves, And Maybe It Is Because Of These Things That Even Now, 36 Years Later, I Love Horses And Justness And Fireworks And Stories.", "Bored Girls In Painting Class."
- Creator: Andrea Joyce Heimer
- Date Created: 2013/2017
- Location: Galata Greek Primary School
- Physical Dimensions: 40.64 x 50.8 cm, 60.96 x 76.2 cm, 47.72 x 60.96 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Acrylic and pencil on paper
Get the app
Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more
