Come join artist Susan Heideman for an in-gallery talk about the exhibition Proteanna, on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum through November 1^st, 2026.

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.