ARTIST STATEMENT
Anna Heinen is a queer artist who finds and invents magic though clay. They create immersive installations that bring audiences into magical realms. Through storytelling and hand-built ceramic objects, Heinen encourages community connection around creative problem solving for a better world. Heinen’s unique and experimental palette of glazes create surfaces with a mystical pulse. The texture of fingermarks and reliefs amplified with oxide stains are common in their work; these textures entice the viewer to touch. Audience interaction is an integral component to every piece Heinen creates.
“Liminal Toothbrush” is a device that can travel with you into your dreams, allowing the user to maintain dental hygiene in the dream world and eliminating the risk of tooth-trauma dreams.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anna Heinen is a queer interdisciplinary artist working in ceramics. They earned their Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Wisconsin Madison, where they studied ceramics under Gerit Grimm, Christina West, and Dara Hartman-Muldoon. Heinen has been obsessed with clay for ten years. Their whimsical and odd inner world shows through in their playful ceramic sculptures and invented stories. Following themes of queerness, problem solving, and fantasy, they create interactive ceramic sculptures and installations. They have exhibited their work in multiple interactive solo shows, including “Big Kitty’s Reverie Commissary” and “PINK-STONE, LAKE-MOON.” Their work was included in the group exhibitions “BODYCON,” “Terrarium 15-12-1,” and “FLOW.” Heinen loves to listen to experimental music, spend time outside, and talk to their cat and muse, Doves.
© Anna Heinen