Artist Features

Heidi Schwegler

Schwegler, Heidi. Extinction Anxiety, 2017. 2018 Individual Artist Fellow, Oregon Arts Commission.

Originally published February, 2018

 “I reverse industrial production by abstracting and transforming durable, mass produced ‘stuff’ into fragile, unique works…When carefully reconstructed with valuable and worthless materials alike, then placed within the exhibition space, the forms both retain the aura of their original context and implicitly evoke the actions of the careless hands that discard them.” – Heidi Schwegler

Heidi Schwegler explores a wide range of materials in the service of her subject matter. She is drawn to the peripheral ruin, modifying discarded objects in order to give them a new sense of purpose. There is an equilibrium inherent in such things – they float between endurance and decay, a living death. She has participated in numerous shows, including exhibitions at the Co/Lab Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA; the Portland Art Museum, Platform China, Beijing; Scope Art 2004, New York, NY; and the Sheldon Museum, Lincoln, NE. Schwegler is a Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts, a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has been an artist in residence at Yaddo and the 18th Street Art Center. Reviews of Schwegler’s work have been published in Art in America, Daily Serving, ArtNews and the Huffington Post. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon and is Chair of the MFA in Applied Craft + Design, a joint OCAC and PNCA program. She is represented by Upfor, Portland.

Courtesy of the Oregon Arts Commission.

Artist Credit: Heidi Schwegler