Richard Heinsohn

My artwork is multifaceted and includes abstract paintings on burlap, wall reliefs and works incorporating photography which I call Time Frames or just Photo Paintings. I also create improvised ambient soundscapes and musical compositions which are connected to the visual art.

In the Photo Paintings I examine connections between the nature of time and the illuminating impact of retrospection. For example, I will take a photo of a television screen playing a show or movie which includes lights in the room being reflected from the screen. I then print the photo and then paint onto it. This process creates a layering of events from the film’s origin and its subject matter to the time of the photo I take, to the act of painting. Thereby, I integrate these various time frames so that one can imagine looking through time to see a sequence of events all at once.  

This process fascinates me because looking back through time has long been the most thoughtful means of charting our course into the future and is the ultimate form of self-examination. I am also drawn to making these works because the very enigma of time persists as an unexplained phenomenon while being a constant and essential aspect of our existence.

I consider any successful work that I make to be a contemplative construct, a creation meant to affect the viewer and stir the imagination. Therefore, as much as I explore various media, I also believe abstract painting continues to have that enigmatic capability and it remains central to my work.

My painting evolves as I reflect on the accelerating changes in our world. I describe my abstraction as Relational because its level of interpretive subjectivity makes it interactive and leads to a shared experience between artist and viewer. Nonetheless, however visually metaphorical of my world view, these abstractions are also subconsciously generated reflections on things unknown and unseen.

While painting, I’m concerned with how perceptions of space prompt the imagination in different ways than perceptions of form and I therefore work to create transparent overlays and animated yet unresolved forms. I’m also intrigued by color and I draw inspiration from Orphism as I consider the act of painting an orchestration of vibrating hues and harmonizing values. The connection between the visual and the aural has now developed into a core part of my work and my recent musical improvisations are directly tied to these abstractions.

Working with burlap, which I began doing several years ago, has added a transformative element to my painting because the burlap holds paint and light very differently than canvas, panel or paper. The burlap, once primed, is sturdy enough to support a lot of paint and this adds to its depth of field while its visible, grid-like weave asserts its identity as a coarse fabric. The result is a sensation of looking into rather than at the painting.

The three-dimensional works, or wall reliefs I make include various objects like toy dinosaurs, clocks, rocks, toy soldiers and other things that I use to create narratives which articulate causes and effects of anthropomorphic devastation. Using the objects, especially toys, heightens the specificity of these works while also introducing some humor into otherwise rather dark subjects like war and climate destruction. These works convey a narrative of human evolution, time passed, aftermath and things lost in the upheavals of the earth.

All three bodies of my work revolve around abstract painting. The Wall reliefs and Time Frames allow me to speak more directly about issues in our world that concern me, while the purely abstract works are meditative and address the immaterial and along with the viewer produce individuated context.

 Richard Heinsohn 2022