“Standing My Ground,” 2016. Oil on canvas. By Julie Heffernan/Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery/Via the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery. The exhibition by Ms. Heffernan at the gallery at the University of Tampa opened on Jan. 24.
By Greg C. Truax, Publisher
“When the Water Rises: Recent Paintings by Julie Heffernan” will be on view at Scarfone/Hartley Gallery at the University of Tampa through March 3.
Ms. Heffernan’s recent paintings “create alternate habitats in response to environmental disaster and planetary excess,” according to the gallery. “With rising waters, she imagines worlds in trees or on rafts in which undulating mattresses, tree boughs, and road signs guide the journey.”
The paintings by Ms. Heffernan, a professor of Fine Arts at Montclair State University, evoke the fantastical allegory of Hieronymus Bosch and the sublime of Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt.
The exhibition is organized by the LSU Museum of Art and will travel throughout 2018 to venues including The Mennello Museum of American and Public Art, Orlando; Palmer Museum of Art at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, Virginia, the gallery said in a news release.
Ms. Heffernan received her MFA in Painting from Yale and a BFA from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has received numerous grants including an NEA, NYFA, and Fullbright Fellowship and is in the collection of major museums including the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Ms. Heffernan is represented by P.P.O.W in New York and Catherine Clark in San Francisco.
The Scarfone/Hartley gallery is located at 310 North Blvd. in Tampa.