Heidi Brueckner

Heidi Brueckner is an Oakland, CA-based artist and professor of art at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA.

She shares, “People are in interested in people, whether it is because of their personality traits, actions, or outward appearance. My work is inspired by this curiosity. I use both archetypes and portraiture as a way to study human nature.”

“Since the pandemic, I have worked solely on portraiture because time with friends and loved ones is precious or limited and the calling to capture them has been strong. It has also become important to include people I have met through traveling in this series. I feel the need to study faces. The portraits are individualistic narratives which explore personality through self-presentation, facial expressions, and gesture. The work often inspects the under-revered, and appreciates the subject’s presence and dignity. These topics seem to require, and in fact dictate an expressive use of paint and frontal, discomforting, and intrusive compositions to achieve psychological expression. I revel in playing with symbolism, mixed media, heavy texture; bright, invented color; elaborate patterning; exaggerated space; and distortion in order to enhance visual activity and conceptual impact.”