News and Media

(<—continued)

I have painted five 42” x 10” panels derivative of Hilma af Klint’s Paintings for the Temple. I have also created five 42” x 10” panels of black and white digital collages of the Ripper women which will be printed on linen and embroidered. My wish is to show them in a way that they would have liked to have been seen, not as corpses as titillation. I reworked their images, clothing them in beautiful dresses, surrounded by Victorian floral motifs. I plan to hang these from the ceiling as an installation to create a dialogue between the two groups.

_{Four (The Five), Acrylic on raw canvas, digital print on linen, Each panel 42” x 120”, 2024  © Heather Gentleman}

I am also working on a series based on my experience in the Arctic called Wherever I go, there you are. The work consists of projections on whale bones and inside hunter cabins, compositing on icebergs and eight 4’ x 8’ paintings. Just before my Arctic residency, I had lost my mother and found that the peace of the Arctic created a place for me to be still with my memories of her.

We were walking on a beach, and I saw whale bones and thought about the idea of death in the Arctic. I thought that I could recreate the whale in my mind, but it would never be exactly as it was. We do that with our memories of those who have passed by forming a narrative with what impacted us. They are only remnants, however, and never the full story. There are so many pieces missing, such that they will never be whole again. I came across a massive whale skull from the 17th century, upon which I projected images from my mother's memorial, which served as remnants. In each of the paintings, I will be drawing an image of my mother, referenced from archival photos, small and ghostly within the vast landscape.

_{Five (The Five), Acrylic on raw canvas, digital print on linen, Each panel 42” x 120”, 2024  © Heather Gentleman}

—

Website: hagatelier.com