Colleen Heslin
“Colleen Heslin’s art works can range from large, to very large, and very extra large. It is time to make more wall space for women.”
— Sandra Botnen, curator
“It is a challenging process to see how much you can strip away and still leave enough.”
Colleen Heslin is the perfect artist to move our focus on women working with textiles toward abstract expressionism, or at least I thought. It turns out Heslin has a distaste for reducing contemporary abstraction to think it merely in terms of the historical movement of abstract expressionism saying “the artistic movement of 70 years ago has little relevance to what I do today.” While she works with abstraction, she references a wide breadth of influences within and outside art history, including elements of minimalism and a heavy emphasis on material formation. Abstract Expressionism is at times a lazy catch-all label in her opinion, used to comprehend contemporary abstraction. “And it is often understood as the canonized period of abstract art, rather than a short historical lineage of abstraction,”she says. The problem with such a misunderstanding of the label, causing many artists doing exciting new things today to be compared to the big expressionists of the past and often missing the broader context of the work and history. Heslin then cites some of her favorite inspirational abstract expressionists-they are all women,- and I begin to see how consistently referencing a small group of ultra popular male painters, makes for an eclipse that blocks the light from shining on many equally exciting female artists.
Heslin herself is a contemporary fiber artist. She focuses on abstraction but uses a broad spectrum of mediums and subjects in her practice. She lives on a 6-acre property in Powell River, BC. Her art practice involves dying canvass, then sewing them into her compositions. Her work is limited by the colors she can achieve through the dying, and the shapes she can maneuver on her industrial sewing machine. At the heart of her work is an excitement for color and form. She brings both to the foreground by maintaining minimalist values. “It is a challenging process to see how much you can strip away and still leave enough.” she says. The results are stunning. Curved, uninterrupted blocks of color suggest movement and bring emotional value to the work.
I didn’t say it, but I am reminded of Mark Rothko when I look at her work even though she has already said how free associating with the past is lazy. But I am beginning to understand her point, how making conclusions based on the artist’s end result, without knowing the artist’s process and values that went into achieving those results, is the part that is lazy. And it is Colleen Heslin’s emphasis on materiality, and her enduring relationship with the sewing machine that links her more closely to the feminist principles that have been discussed over the past 5 days, than I would have anticipated.
My thoughts come full circle and once again I believe Colleen Heslin is the perfect artist to segue our focus away from women textile to a broader theme of current themes of abstraction and expressionism. I have been looking at women’s careers and how they have been shaped by rejecting the patriarchal history of painting and often moving into a world of “out of the box” sculptural works. Wall space is still considered premium real estate, and often reserved for male artists who approach it with a history of entitlement. Heslin brings us back to a place where women are still bumping up against a male dominated competition for wall space. “Making Space: Woman Artist and Postwar Abstraction” was the title of a 2017 exhibit at the MOMA, underscoring the concerted effort still required to allow wall space to women. In spite of the challenge, Heslin’s works generally range from large, to very large, to extra very large. In fact, she is currently renovating an out-building on her property to facilitate her penchant for expansive works.
And when it comes to making space for women, she has no problem cross-referencing artists, drawing attention to other women, like Saskatchewan born Agnes Martin, or the minimalist sculptor Anne Truitt. She is passionate about the urinal debate, firmly believing it should be attributed to Baroness Elsa Von Freytag- Loringhoven rather than Marcel Duchamps.
Before ending our conversation, Heslin wants to add that social activism and letter writing is becoming part of her practice. After a long, drawn-out correspondence with a British Museum she says she, along with other historians at the museum, were able to have the description of a statue of a Syrain woman changed from what she thought was degrading language to something more respectful. It is a small, yet powerful change not lost on Heslin. Corresponding with the museum gave her a glimpse behind the scenes of an institution and the kind of procedure required to make such a small change. She is clearly motivated by her capacity to make a difference and I love her work even more because of it.
Finally, I am drawn more than ever to making space in my home for woman artists. What better way than dedicating the largest wall in my home be devoted to a work by Colleen Huslin? She is currently represented by Monte Clark Gallery and her works can exceed my budget which I have capped at $10,000. At that price I could get a smaller piece, approximately 48”X 60” which I would still love. But I think I will remain motivated to one day buy a larger piece and dedicate even more wall space to an inspiring woman in art, who is dedicated to making a difference.
Available Works
contact Monte Clark Gallery