Proteanna: Susan Heideman

Artist Susan Heideman (b. 1950) has explored bio-morphic shapes of the ocean’s “in-between entities” for nearly twenty years in her Proteanna series and beyond. The real and imagined floating, aqueous shapes of her work evoke the forms of invertebrate creatures that often remind us of primordial beings living in the depths of the sea.

The colorful hand embroidered large scale works that define the Proteanna series are “hybrid” in nature and include a mix of older works combined with newer paintings and constructions. The texture and layering create an almost three-dimensional experience that transport the visitor into a wondrous underwater world of possibility.

Artist Statement:

In 2006 the Proteanna Series began with an experiment. For the first time, using black embroidery thread, I tried stitching imagery into an existing watercolor I’d always felt lacking. The piece seemed to come alive. Suddenly the idea of combining stitching, watercolor and other aqueous media on larger sheets of thick watercolor paper had become entrancing. I began tearing up random, ragged fragments of my old monotypes and stitching them onto the paper. I continued stitching, painting, and layering, attaching collaged pieces strictly through stitching. This was the beginning of the ongoing Proteanna Series. I coined the word “proteanna,” derived from the word “protean,” to suggest entities and their situations straddling and crossing taxonomies, mutating beyond classification. The process is as improvisatory as nature; forms develop, morph, and reconstitute. Fragments get sewn atop fragments, creating relief surfaces that stratify. Might my grafting and hybridizing processes be likened to nature’s own irrepressibly continuous transforming?

Bio:

Heideman is a Smith College Professor Emerita who taught painting and drawing within Smith’s Art Department for thirty-six years. During that time, she maintained her studio practice in Boston; she continues to work and live in Boston since retiring. She has works in the following permanent collections: Smith College Museum (several pieces);

Danforth Museum of Art at Framingham State University; Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University; Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park; Boston Public Library Collection of Prints and Drawings (multiple pieces); and The William and Uytendal Collection of Works by Women Artists at Bryn Mawr College. Her works are also represented in numerous corporate collections. She has shown up and down the East Coast and New York City in commercial galleries, non-profit galleries, and museums.