Heather Beardsley
Monica Angle, Heather Beardsley, Michelle Gagliano, Kris Iden: Organic Matter
Heather Beardsley
Education
Fulbright Research Scholarship, 2015-2016
Installation Art, Vienna, Austria
Masters of Fine Arts, May 2015
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Fine Arts, May 2012
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, May 2009
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Heather Beardsley: Strange Plants, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, USA
2022 Pteridomania, Shenandoah Valley Art Center, Waynesboro, VA, USA
2022 This Will Be for Thousands of Years, Barry Art Museum, Norfolk, VA, USA
2022 A Dream of Strange Cities, Artspace, Richmond, VA, USA
2019 Folding City, Rogers Studio Gallery, Las Vegas, NV, USA
2019 Strange Plants, IZONE, Kyiv, Ukraine
2018 Variations on a Theme, Merion Hall Gallery, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2017 Biomimikry, Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum, Braunschweig, Germany
2016 Encoded Elucidations, Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria
Two and Three Person Exhibitions
2023 Hexagonal, with Dan Flounders and Garth Fry, Assembly, Norfolk, VA, USA
2023 The Nature of Things, with Hilarys Waters Fayle and Kris Iden Flippo Gallery, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA,
USA
2019 Once I had…, with Britta Benno, Kraam Art Space, Tallinn, Estonia
2019 Red Thread, with Guido Nosari, Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
2018 Transmigration, with Anne Stagg, Curfman Gallery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
2014 Cutaway: An Artistic Dissection of Science, with Katie Vota, Paperish Mess, Chicago, IL, USA
Group Exhibitions
2023 In the Middle with You, The Middle Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2023 Organic Matter, Les Yeux du Monde, Charlottesville, VA, USA
2023 Unbound 12, Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA, USA
2023 Beyond the Frame: A Contemporary Exploration in Mixed Media Photography, Target Gallery, Torpedo Art Center, Alexandria
VA, USA
2022 More than Shelter, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA
2022 Flora/Fauna/Fiber, Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA, USA
2022 Other Ways of Seeing, The Plaxall Gallery at Culture Lab LIC, Queens, NY, USA
2021 2021 Textile Biennial, Museum Rijswijk, Rijswijk, Netherlands
2020 Rogers Art Loft Year One Retrospective, Rogers Studio Gallery, Las Vegas, NV, USA
2020 Sea of Change, Virginia Beach Art Center, Virginia Beach, VA, USA
2020 Devotion: Sewing the Sacred, Surface Design Association Exhibition in Print
2020 Tiny but Mighty National Juried Exhibition, d’Art Center, Norfolk, VA, USA
2020 Flat Files at OyG, Ortega y Gasset Projects, New York, NY, USA
2019 Shangyuan 2019 Residency Program Closing Exhibition, Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
2019 8th World Textile Art Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art, Museo del Traje, Madrid, Spain
2019 Depth, Michigan Science Center, curated by Science Gallery Detroit, Detroit, MI, USA
2019 Shangyuan Artist in Residence Opening Exhibition, Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
2019 Fantastic Fibers 2019, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY, USA
2019 New Waves 2019, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA, USA
2019 Memory Palace, Jackson Dinsdale Art Center, Hastings, NE, USA
2018 Werkpräsentation der KulturKontakt A.I.R.: Austrian Chancellory, Vienna, Austria
2018 Transcultural Emancipatioin, Fluc, Vienna, Austria
2018 Collider, Circa Modern, Chicago, IL, USA
2018 BARTR x Tinta, Tinta, Budapest, Hungary
2018 Circular, Gestalt Projects, Santa Monica, CA, USA
2018 Off the Wall, Spartanburg Art Museum, Spartanburg, SC, USA
2018 Amateras Annual Mini Paper Art Competition, National Palace of Culture, Sofia, Bulgaria
2018 The 12th International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art “Scythia”, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Ukraine
2018 Fake, Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2018 Material, D’Art Center, Norfolk, VA, USA
2018 Books Undone, The Gallery at Penn College, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Williamsport, PA, USA
2017 Botanik, Las Lagunas Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, USA
2017 War in the Arts: Redeeming Spirits, Orange Hall Gallery, SUNY Orange, NY, USA
2017 Department Of, Montagehalle, University of Fine Arts- Braunschweig, Braunchschweig, Germany
2017 Prescriptions: artist books, Tempelman Gallery, University of Kent, Kent, UK
2017 Shout, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2017 Wild Cuts, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2017 Fight or Flight, The Painting Center, New York, NY, USA
2017 Paper Works, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth, TX, USA
2017 We the People: Political Art in an Age of Discord, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
2017 Nearby – Faraway: 19th Annual Mini-Textile Exhibition, Gallery SVÚ, Bratislava, Slovakia
2017 30th Annual Women’s Works, Old Court House Art Center, Woodstock, IL, USA
2016 Crafting Community: SDA 2016 Inaugural International Exhibition In Print (print exhibition)
2016 New Fibers 2016, Eastern Michigan University Gallery, Ypsilanti, MI, USA
2016 19th International Open, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2016 Inspirácia Papierom III, Galeria X, Bratislava, Slovakia
2016 Prescriptions, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, Canterbury, UK (catalogue)
2015 Cut / Create: The Endless Possibilities of Paper, Union Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2013 Radius250 2013, artspace, Richmond, VA, USA
2013 Smörgåsbord, Gallery CA, Baltimore, MD, USA
Residencies/ Fellowships
2024 Pier-2 Art Center Artist in Residence, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan (forthcoming)
2023 CANTemporaries Art Residency, CAN Foundation, Newport News, VA, USA
2022 Artist in Residence, La Box, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges, Bourges, France
2020 33 Officina Creativa, Toffia, Italy (cancelled due to COVID-19)
2020 Sirius Arts Centre Artist in Residence, Cobh, Ireland
2019 Rogers Arts Loft Artist in Residence, Las Vegas, NV
2019 IZOLYATSIA Residency Program, sponsored by US Embassy, Kyiv, Ukraine
2019 Shangyuan Art Museum Artist in Residence, Beijing, China
2018 Artist in Residence, KulturKontakt Austria, awarded by the Austrian Federal Chancellory, Vienna, Austria
2018 Artist Residency, fee supported, BARTR, Budapest, Hungary
2017 Braunschweig Projects International Artist Scholarship, awarded by the Ministry of Science and Culture from the
State of Lower-Saxony, Germany
Awards and Grants
2022 Honorable Mention- This Will Be for Thousands of Years, Best Museum Exhibition (New Work) 0f 2022 in Hampton Roads,
Virginia, VEER Magazine issue, December 2022
2020 Pandemic Relief Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Art, USA
2020 Merit Award, Sea of Change, Virginia Beach Art Center, Virginia Beach, VA, USA
2020 Merit Award, Tiny But Mighty National Juried Exhibition, d’Art Center, Norfolk, VA, USA
2020 Modern Meets Tradition Award, Devotion: Sewing the Sacred, Surface Design Association Exhibition in Print
2018 Finalist, Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, Mainline Art Center, Haverford, PA, USA
2017 Peripheral Visions Publication Fellowship, Peripheral Vision Arts, Dallas, USA
2017 First Place, 30th Annual Women’s Works, Old Court House Art Center, Woodstock, IL, USA
2015 Fulbright Scholarship Research Grant for Installation Art, Vienna, Austria
Public Lectures and Workshops
2023 Cyanotype Workshop, Torggler Fine Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA
2023 Visiting Artist, Intro to Sculpture Class with Ryan Lytle, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA
2023 Visiting Artist Lecture, Fashion Embellishments Course, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
2022 Visiting Artist Talk, Environmental Science Program, Brock Environmental Center,
Virginia Beach, VA, USA
2022. Image Transfer Workshop, Torggler Fine Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA
2022 Coffee + Conversation, with Mel Price, in conjunction with More Than Shelter, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art,
Virginia Beach, VA, USA
2022 Artist in Residence Lecture, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges, Bourges, France
2022 Panelist, Fulbright Info Session, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
2022 Artist in Residence Lecture, ENSA Bourges, Bourges, France
2021 Visiting Artist Lecture, Grant-Writing Seminar, UNLV, Las Vegas, NV, USA
2021 Visiting Artist Lecture, Fashion Embellishments Course, School of the Art Institute of Chicago , Chicago, USA
2019 Cyanotype Workshop, Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, USA
2019 Artist in Residence Lecture, Rogers Studio Gallery, Las Vegas, NV, USA
2019 Artist in Residence Lecture, IZOLYATSIA, Kyiv, Ukraine
2019 Artist in Residence Lecture, Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
2019 Visiting Artist Lecture, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Visiting Artist Lecture, University of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2018 Stop Motion Animation Workshop, BARTR Art Residency, Budapest, Hungary
2017 “Biomimickry”, artist lecture, Braunschweig Staatliches Naturhistorischesmuseum, Braunschweig, Germany
2016 “Conceptual Map-making: Reenvisioning the Objects in Vienna’s Globenmuseum”, presentation, Fulbright Seminar
in American Studies, Strobl, Austria
Institutional Collections
Amateras Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria
Artists’ Books and the Medical Humanities Project, University of Kent, Kent, UK
Candela Collection, Richmond, VA, USA
Rogers Arts Foundation, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China
World Textile Art Organization, Miami, Florida, USA
I work between art and science, both by emulating how scientists work and adapting the visual language with which scientific research is communicated for a non-expert public. I use methods from zoologists to create somewhat convincing descriptions and illustrations for my creations. I play with scientific display conventions, imitating the style of high-tech visualizations like spectrographs and 3D printing through low-tech craft media like modeling clay, cyanotypes, and embroidery. At times I have done this to question the authority scientific depictions are often unquestioningly given, other times to borrow from said authority to validate my own work. By embellishing and extrapolating upon science, art, like science-fiction, has the ability to create visceral worlds that feel lived in. Taking things to fantastical extremes opens up new questions and avenues of thinking at this critical point in our history, especially in terms of environmental impact. Human industrialization has had a huge impact on the earth’s natural cycles; changes that once happened over millennia have now unfolded in decades.
In 2017, I visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and wandering through Pripyat made me feel the transience and fragility of human life in a way that continues to haunt me. Over the past thirty years, nature that was destroyed by human hubris and incompetence has grown up to dominate the abandoned man-made structures. In some ways this place is frozen in time, a snapshot of an idealized community, built by an empire that no longer exists. Since that trip, I have sought out ruins and abandoned structures as a source of inspiration, and my travels have taken me to abandoned hospitals, prison complexes, and Soviet military bases. For me, these places are a form of intergenerational communication, passing on information from the past and posing questions about what messages our ruins will send to those that come after us. Through this lens, I make speculative, imagined images of potential distant futures where the balance between the built and natural world has shifted. Looking at my work, I want people to ask: Can the damage we’ve done be reversed? What will the world look like without us? And how long will evidence of our civilizations remain? The materials and processes I use in my work reinforce these concepts, allowing them to resonate on a deeper level and keep from feeling literal or didactic.
Publications
2023 Photo Trouvée Magazine, issue 10, pp. 82-85, 15 Apr. 2023,
2022 Eberhart, Jenna. “11 Contemporary Textile Artists to Celebrate During Women’s History Month.” Not Real Art, 23 Mar. 2022,
https://notrealart.com/contemporary-textile-artists-womens-history-month-2022/.
2022 Manby, Jo. “Plant Apocalypse – Heather Beardsley’s Speculative Embroidery.” The Fourdrinier, 3 Jan. 2022,
https://www.thefourdrinier.com/.
2021 Laurens, Morgan. “Q+Art: Heather Beardsley Brings Wide-Eyed Wonder to the Art of Science.”
Not Real Art World, 18 Aug.2021,
https://notrealart.com/artist-heather-beardsley-art-and-science/.
2020. Autumnus, E-Squared Magazine, issue 5, pp. 131-135, Fall 2020
2020 Adams, Helen. “Heather Beardsley.” Textile Curator: Waking up the World to ContemporaryTextile Art, 10 Aug. 2020,
www.textilecurator.com/home-default/home-2-2/heatherbeardsley/
2020 Tomasello, Anne Marie “Artist Highlight: Heather Beardsley ‘The Nomad Artist’.” Studio Practice Blog, Apr. 2020
https://www.amtmaker.com/heatherbeardsley
2019 Biennial Edition, Peripheral ARTeries, Fall 2019
2019 Average Art Magazine, vol. 36, July 2019
2019 Beardsley, Heather. “Heather Beardsley | Biomimicry.” The Art Blog, 2019,
http://the-art-blog.info/7376/heather-beardsley-biomimicry/
2019 Bleakley, Alan, editor. “A Manifesto for Artists’ Books & the Medical Humanities.”Routledge Handbook of the Medical
Humanities, by Stella Bolaki, Routledge, 2019.
2019 Krysa, Danielle. “Heather Beardsley.” The Jealous Curator, 27 Feb. 2019,
http://www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/2019/02/27/heather-beardsley/
2018 BARTR 2018 Anthology, in collaboration with Hurrikan Press and Vulkan Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2018 Downs, David. Interview. Werks, Sprocketbox Publishing, vol. 1, June 2018.
https://sprocketboxpublishing.com
2018 “Grids.” Title of Project, Make8elieve, vol. 13, pp. 234–237., 8.4.2018
http://www.make8elieve.com
2018 “Activism”, Oh Dear Beast, vol 1 p. 11-12, 15.1.2018
http://www.ohdearbeast.com
2017 Bolaki, Stella and Ciricaite, Egidija, editors. Prescriptions: artists books on wellbeing and medicine,
Natrix Press, London. 2017, pp. 10-11
2017 “Politics Today”, Murze Magazine, vol. 2 p. 14, 10.08.2017
https://www.murze.org/mag
Press
2023 Laurens, Morgan. “‘Strange Plants’: Life Finds a way
2022 “Heather Beardsley.” Curate757, season 7, episode 6, PBS, 16 Nov. 2022.
https://www.pbs.org/video/heather-beardsley-3akoqm/
2022 Kennedy, Amber. “Barry Art Museum Exhibits Artwork Connected to Ukraine.” Old Dominion University, 20 May 2022,
https://www.odu.edu/article/barry-art-museum.
2022 McGee, Kelley. “New Torggler Exhibit Opens, Works Re-Imagine Nature with Textiles and Fibers.” Christopher Newport
University, 23 June 2022,
https://cnu.edu/news/2022/06/23-torg-flora-fauna-fiber/.
2021 “The Rijswijk Textile Biennial 2021 ‘Food for Thought.” Textile Forum Blog, 28 Oct. 2021,
https://www.textile-forum-blog.org/2021/10/the-rijswijk-textile-biennial-2021-food-for-thought/
2021 Kortekaas, Joren. “Meet the Artists Pt. 3 | Textiel Biënnale 2021. Food for Thought | Museum Rijswijk.”
YouTube, Museum Rijswijk, 22 Nov. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2P88vOO72c.
2022 Holmes, Brent. “Rogers Art Loft Brings the World to Las Vegas, One Artist at a Time A Local’s Love Note to a Homegrown
Institution.” Double Scoop: Arts in Nevada, 5 Apr. 2021
https://www.doublescoop.art/rogers-art-loft-brings-the-world-to-las-vegas-one-artist-at-a-time/.
2020 Sole, D.K. “Heather Beardsley, Folding City.” Settlers + Nomads, 25 Jan. 2020,
settlersandnomads.art/.
2019 Antosha, Antonina. “Heather Beardsley: Nature, Environment and Human Societies, Their Interaction and Symbolism.”
UATV English, Kyiv, Ukraine, 23 Aug. 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Piw_46RW4
2019 “Live In The D: Science Gallery Detroit Debuting ‘Depth’.” Live In the D, WDIV, 4 June 2019,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBfXpzMhncM.
2019 Clark, Christina. “DEPTH Water Exhibit at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit: The Temporary DEPTH Water Exhibit at the
Michigan Science Center Explores the Importance of Water and Taking Care of the Planet, June 8-Aug. 17, 2019.” Metro
Parent, 20 June 2019, https://www.metroparent.com/things-to-do/attractions/depth-water-exhibit/.
2019 Hodges, Michael. “MSU Exhibit ‘DEPTH’ Explores Our Ties to Water at Michigan Science Center.” The Detroit News, 7June 2019.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/
2018 Kovač, Eva. “Work Presentation of the AIR in the 4th Quarter of 2018 of the Federal Chancellery AND KulturKontakt Austria.”
Block Frei Blog, 9 Dec. 2018, https://blockfrei.org/work-presentation-of-the-artists-in-residence
2018 Regine. “When Is Fake ‘Even Better That the Real Thing’?” Review of Fake.We Make Money Not Art, 21 May 2018,
we-make-money-not-art.com//.
2018 King, Anthony. “Fact, Fiction and the Art of Deception.” Review of Fake. Nature International Journal of Science, 19 Mar. 2018,
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03271-9.
2018 Davis Meixel, Cindy. “Gallery’s First National Juried Exhibition Offers Plenty to Ponder.” Review of Books Undone, 21 Jan. 2018,
https://pctoday.pct.edu/
2018 “Fake: The Real Deal? at Science Gallery Dublin.” Science Gallery Dublin, Mar. 2018,
dublin.sciencegallery.com/video/.
2017 “Books as Art Decorate Penn College Library, Gallery.” Penn State News, 11 Dec. 2017.
https://news.psu.edu/story/