Richard Heinsohn

Artist Statement
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My art comes from the desire to engage viewers in an existential contemplation of the human moment in space and time. Through abstraction, I appeal to the inferential capacity of the viewer to speculate on meaning, convinced that the best art experience includes some level of mystery and some sense of discovery. This makes the work relational and interactive rather than demonstrative. I often work through the lens of deep time and do this across a range of disciplines including abstract painting, wall reliefs, overpainted photos, sculpture, sound and video.

Time has long been a point of fascination for me. I enjoy thinking of rocks as time capsules. Placing them with inorganic detritus in assemblages, reliefs and paintings provides a means for me to speak of both deep time and human impact on our planet. I paint parallel lines and stripes to reference geological time, inviting the observation that each striation in a geological formation represents millions of years. These striations, often painted into burlap works, also refer to wave forms that connect our planet to the cosmos. Circles in my paintings embody the wheel of time, or Kalachakra, as observed by Vajrayana Buddhism and other ancient belief systems that see time as cyclical rather than linear. These and other temporal and wave form associations in my work invite the consideration of deep time as a means to observe our own proportionally minuscule place in both space and time, alluding to our collective vulnerability.

Examining enigmatic parallels such as how wave forms traveling from light years away resemble stripes in geological formations leads to an embrace of the modern sublime, a valuation of unknowing, a profound respect for the otherworldly. To elevate the perception of our collective place in space and time is to expand our consciousness, to see that the abundance of our shared concerns as humanity far outweigh our differences.

-Richard Heinsohn