Artist Statement

My work is an invitation to the viewer to enter the world as I see it. I hope it may redefine your perception of seeing and feeling. My work is neither two, nor three dimensional. The work is not a painting, nor a sculpture, yet it is somehow both. I attempt to draw the viewer into the work’s own dimension.

I began my career as a printmaker. While working in my studio one night I noticed a photo of a city streetscape. It lay on the floor, next to a piece of weathered plywood. The texture of the plywood echoed the texture of the buildings and I felt something shift within me. I picked up the plywood and began to pry it apart. I found the wood organic, tactile, and respected that it came from the earth and held history. I began to use the layers of wood the way I use a paintbrush. Everything I knew about creating art changed that night. I began to develop a new form of art I had never seen before. In the beginning, the work was more intuitive than understood. I knew it came from a deep reverence of sacred geometry that I developed during an art history residency in Venice, Italy. After the cathedrals in Italy, I wanted to better understand the places where we worship, work, and dwell. I was in search of the stories that create sacred space within us that we think of as home.

In the early days, I went into my studio to grow and learn. I still do that, but now, the learning is underscored with years of experience. I am willing, perhaps even driven, to travel to wherever the creative process takes me.

When I create a representational piece, I see it in a very abstract way. I am comfortable moving between the representational and the abstract. Consequently, I find the work is always evolving. Within the wooden assemblages I create, I can sense the meaning behind the stories, the joys, and the tragedies, experienced within the spaces. I am forever moved by the lives that have dwelled within our time-kept places. I am moved by the places themselves. I am moved by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as captured in my piece, “As Above, So Below”; and I am just as moved by the lone woman behind the door in the piece I created, titled, “Leave the Light On”. They are the places where we have been awestruck, celebrated, felt safe, and known loss. Having the privilege of doing this work always fills me with a deep sense of responsibility. In attempting to fulfill that responsibility I find profound peace, and always, joy.

As an artmaker, I have ventured into alleyways, up fire escapes, and even into tunnels beneath our cities. I seek places that require me to step outside of myself. It has become for me akin to a spiritual practice. I create artwork that can be elusive. I expect something from my viewer because I respect my viewer.

As an artist, I want my viewer to admire the work, but more importantly, I hope they will enter it. In doing so, may this work reach inside your chest, hold your heart, and speak to your own sense of home.

Biography

Heather Kocsis (b.1974) creates architectural wall-sculptures of the time-kept places where we find meaning, where we feel safe, and where we are at peace. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, with Honours, from Queen’s University, CA, with a specialization in printmaking. Heather has participated in over 50 exhibitions throughout North America. She has exhibited at the juried Architectural Digest Design Show in Manhattan, NY, for six consecutive years. The New York shows were instrumental in bringing international attention to the distinctive nature of her work.

Kocsis’s work is in private and corporate art collections throughout North America and Europe including the Public Art Collection of the City of Toronto, The Sony Centre for Performing Arts, Toronto, ON; Langdon Hall, Relais and Chateaux, Cambridge, ON; 5 Penn Plaza, NY, NY; Isherwood Geostructural Engineers, Toronto, ON, and St. Mary’s Hospital, Kitchener, ON, to name a few.

In 2001, at Kocsis’s first solo exhibit, her collection of fourteen heritage industrial landmarks was sold to a prominent Canadian art collector. It was loaned to Kitchener City Hall as a public art installation where it remains to this day.

She has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, and a microgrant for a body of work to be placed in palliative care institutions. She has collaborated internationally with performing artists and filmmakers to create short films investigating themes of social justice and cultural heritage. A study of Kocsis’s work was entered into the curriculum of the Philadelphia School for Creative and Performing Arts. Her process has been featured in numerous documentary films including “Making Art Toronto”.

Kocsis is a frequent art juror and guest speaker. A member of the Academy of Arts for Kitchener-Waterloo, Kocsis is a mentor to emerging artists and belongs to the Grand River Arts Collective, a Waterloo Region organization that advocates for opportunities and professional development for artists.

Heather’s home and studio are based in Cambridge, ON, Canada.