Heather Shaw Bischoff

intellectually humble mixed media artist

Heather S BischoffBiSH is curious about how experience is linked to objects within environments. Energy and emotion are derived from the most commonplace details and this work merges medium & message to achieve visceral expression & experience.

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With an affinity for reclaimed materials, BiSH exercises memory for places, experiences, people, and objects by re-purposing items into new forms. The resulting assemblage of familiar artifacts creates a language for viewers to consider dichotomies of our material world, exploring humans in relationship with natural forces of the universe. By merging organic matter (bark, seeds, flowers) with industrial representations (paint samples, receipts, print media) you are invited to contemplate the source of materials and their relationship to natural origins. Presenting juxtapositions of order/chaos, internal/external, and geometry/flow, this work addresses polarities as a cycle. A terminus becomes initiation for future form with the physical composition alluding to the energetic realms that govern (re)creation.

Mixed media installations are among the most dynamic work from BiSH; experimenting on-site at festivals, public spaces, and in contemporary galleries. Immersive mediums such as books, sound, stickers, and graffiti solicit interaction thereby integrating you (the audience/viewer/participant) into the artwork. It is not until you engage that you will enter a new realm of perception. There are no hierarchies or (in)correct ways to think within this realm. The work holds space to investigate questions and encompass interconnected experiences around a universal truth. The traces that the work leaves and/or the wear that it endures are often the most precious qualities. Involving others in a collective experience generates the impact with their time and contributions invested in the process. This nature requires that the work is never finite or perfect; it evolves through the perpetual (re)experience between the participant, environment, and self. BiSH’s design standards facilitate this experience but does not eliminate options for co-creation and improvisation.

Based in the Green Mountains of Vermont and the High Rockies of Colorado, BiSH frequently travels to collect materials and cultural experience that inform the work. Repertoire ranges from fine art painting and collage to site-specific murals and installations.