Mind of Winter:
Landscape Paintings by Laura Heijn
Art at The Bistro will host a show of landscape paintings by Johnson artist Laura Heijn from July 9th through September 5th.
Opening reception : Wednesday, July 14th 4 to 6 pm. Come meet the artist, see her work, and enjoy hors-d’oeuvres prepared by chef Chase Vanderveer. Cash bar is available. Winding Brook Bistro, 933 VT Route 100C in Johnson.
In viewing Laura’s paintings one has the sensation of being alone out in the natural world. In the winter pictures, archetypal natural forms (trees, fields, mountains) reflect an internal experience and invite contemplation and stillness. The expansive views of spring and summer are depicted in wide, horizontal panels that offer pathways for entry into and movement through the landscape.
Laura works in acrylic on paper or panel, largely from the views immediately surrounding her home in Johnson. Her technique depends on the fast-drying quality of acrylic paint itself, which allows for changes in direction as the painting evolves. She is thus able to overlay new marks on old without a mixing and muddying of the layers, responding to the interplay of subject and painting in the moment. This approach began as a practical solution to the problem of painting outdoors in remote places, and out of a backpack on extended wilderness trips.
Though over the years her painting habits have evolved from the snapshot depictions of a traveler on foot in the landscape, to the steadier gaze of an inhabitant of one place, her paintings retain the freshness of the single moment of seeing, even as she paints her most familiar views.
Laura grew up in Massachusetts and studied art and English literature at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and at Harvard University in Cambridge. She has lived in Johnson for 17 years, where she runs a small home dairy operation and raises three sometimes-homeschooled children.
