Ss5 — FACETIME: Heather McCleod
NANTUCKET | Swapping eyes with irises, a unique approach to portraiture reveals more than it conceals
This month on Studio Sessions, we’re making time for the face with FACETIME. This series profiles four artists working in portraiture to reveal the character of their subjects by subverting conventions of the art form.
WORDS BY EMILY COPPELLA
ART BY HEATHER MCCLEOD
Heather V McLeod’s portraits are cause for pause. A realist painter born and raised in New York, she received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016, her MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2021, and has completed several artist residences on Nantucket Island and in Tribeca. Her signature style is straightforward: retro-hued combinations of flowers and faces. Her figures are often placed in neutral domestic settings, communicating a quiet intimacy through the use of muted tones that simultaneously seem to burst at the seams with narrative energy.
Often dressed in subtle satire, McLeod’s work teases the line between revealing and obscuring, inviting the viewer to consider the identities, representations, and perceptions of familial relationships. Likewise, her fascination with works that bloom with softness also interrogates the viewer’s assumptions of femininity. The aesthetic of her paintings is akin to a portrait of a family member long forgotten in the attic, then rediscovered and revitalized through the use of humorous floral doodles. Nostalgic in atmosphere and modern in wit, McLeod’s body of work fosters the unexpected, and viewers are gently asked to stay a while.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to VISUAL ARTS to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.