Sharon Heitzenroder

Lives and works in Honolulu, HI, USA

Artist statement

As an artist, I sift through the murky intersections of rational thought, theory, emotion, and instinct to find within the visual language a transcendental mode of speech. My work is a conductor for thought and experiences, and functions like portraits for ideas. Every element within my work informs my subject matter. Color, form, scale, and pictorial representation speak to a magnitude of sensations. When my work is successful, it holds within itself a general idea that can be experienced within its presence, and the nuances of its visual language speak to said notion. Its boundaries as a language are not limited to theories bound to pages within a book, nor based on one critical theory. Instead, it should be understood that as the artist, I am a critical thinker and theorist, and that every action taken within the process of making is critical and crucial to the subject. The works are pictorial apparitions, which provide spaces for solemn contemplation and retrospection; in that, their presence transcends their scale and alludes to the emotional parameters of the mind, an introspective space. Within this space, I speak about a variety of subjects, from the pangs of loss to the impact of male desire and the devastation of invisible systems of oppression. I turn my camera outward to the world as much as I turn it inward.

Artwork