Amber Heaton
Amber Heaton received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012 and a BFA from the University of Utah in 2009. Her work has been exhibited at Parrish Museum of Art, International Print Center New York, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Musée Des Beaux-Art, Le Locle, Switzerland, and other venues internationally. In 2016, Heaton participated in the AIM Program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and she is currently a Scholar for Advanced Studies at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. She was awarded a Fulbright ETA Fellowship in South Korea from 2001 – 2003.
In my work, I seek equilibrium, a sense of balance in systems embodying both moments of tension and calm. Nature is a model for me. The natural world finds the most elegant, efficient, and sometimes violent paths to express beauty and harmony.
I investigate cyclical patterns that shape how we experience light and time, such as the moon moving around the Earth, the Earth moving around the sun, and the sun moving through the universe. These patterns form the basis of my compositions.
I make drawings, prints, sculptures, and installations. Using pattern, line, and color, I build compositions that play with shifting scale, symmetry, and abstraction. Visually, I try to elicit momentary shifts in optical perception that create vibration, movement, and depth. I work through ideas systematically. The systems I build are influenced by our increasing cultural dependence on data, number systems, and the Internet to organize daily thoughts. This dependence on technology makes me feel a fading sense of connection to the world around me. My work is an attempt to reclaim a sense of the mysterious that abounds in nature.
