Classically trained and based in Hamilton, Ontario, Laura Heaney is a multifaceted artist equipped with a diverse skill set. She can usually be found sitting in the same position for hours while perfecting the most minute detail in a painfully crafted drawing or clad in paint-covered overalls as she enlivens a canvas with swaths of acrylic. Her themes, mediums and subject matter vary, but her works share a distinct combination of traditional techniques and subjects, often found in the Renaissance and Romantic eras, combined with more contemporary motifs and accessible materials. Laura is as likely to pick up a coloured pencil as she is a brush or a dip pen. Bolstering a visual arts education with studies in both history and art history, it is easy to see how her love of the old-meets-new developed in her artistic practice. Her work has been represented in galleries and shows throughout Southern Ontario, the Canadian Maritimes, Quebec and New York.
OBSERVING GREEN ARTIST STATEMENT
Born out of a personal growing interest in environment-conscious movements and a more mindful daily life, Observing Green is a pen and ink drawing series that catalogs green spaces and parkland in face of growing environmental concerns. Using clean, smooth, continuous lines, I’m able to take the vast, changing landscapes that I visit, and create accessible art pieces housed in up-cycled frames.
The series takes inspiration from revered artists like Franklin Booth, who’s pen and ink drawing style was formed by studying wood engravings in books and magazines at the turn of the 20th century. In keeping with such classic pen and ink works, the stylized nature of my Observing Green depictions lends a whimsical detachment to the landscapes while the use of successive, unnaturally straight horizontal lines to make up the sky gives them a backdrop of obvious human interaction. Painstakingly drawn in black and white, these precious green spaces are immortalized in a bygone style as though they are already lost to us.
I document my collaboration with nature using Instagram (@lkheaney & @observinggreen), where I’m able to share my artistic process as well as my attempts to establish environmentally sustainable habits in my art practice and day to day life. Through my social media presence and the Observing Green series, I strive to create a space for people to pause and appreciate the land’s remarkable story while potentially inspiring them to connect with their own local green spaces and take an interest in sustainability and ethical stewardship.
While Observing Green takes me all over Canada, Hamilton is my base of operations. This city has been home to my family for over three generations and having daily access to the unique and varied green spaces of the Niagara Escarpment keeps me engaged with the outdoors on an intimate basis. To date I’ve managed to capture Binbrook Tract Conservation Area, Confederation Park, Cootes Paradise and Tiffany Falls, and have gathered reference material from locations like Sherman Falls and the Dundas Valley with the intent of adding them to the collection.
By donating a portion of all Observing Green proceeds to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, this series aims to support the conservation of Canada's beautifully diverse ecosystems.
