Heidi Nielson

Heidi Nielson is a mixed media artist creating a body of work that is a meditation on the things we carry from generation to generation. A fourth-generation Japanese American, bi-racial, queer, ex-Mormon American artist, she has lots of history that she is still unpacking and exploring. Using found and discarded materials, she seeks to promote healing, repair, and sustainability through her art, while still making space for the weird and whimsical.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Heidi Nielson is a mixed media artist creating a body of work that is a meditation on the things we carry from generation to generation. A fourth-generation Japanese American, bi-racial, queer, ex-Mormon American artist, she has lots of history that she is still unpacking and exploring. Using found and discarded materials, she seeks to promote healing, repair, and sustainability through her art, while still making space for the weird and whimsical.

Her two most recent collections, created in 2020 and 2021 during our collective quarantine, delves deeper into these concepts. The first collection, titled “kindred spirits,” focuses on what we carry from generation to generation--the trauma, but also the resilience, the stories, the love, and the ghosts that continue to haunt us. In this series, she breaks apart old materials—broken plates, reclaimed wood, geodes—to dig into her roots, a process that can be painful, but is necessary to understand the present. Her second collection, titled “the house where everyone feels safe” again focuses on themes of trauma and resilience, particularly concepts of polarization, religious trauma and racial and sexual identity, but focuses on the truths and hopes that keep us moving forward. She uses softer materials for these works, including cut-paper collage, vintage photography, painting, and embroidery to explore these themes and her pieces often include messages sewn into paper or canvas.

ARTIST BIO

Heidi Nielson resides in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two cats and, in addition to creating mixed media fine artwork, is a full-time lawyer and owner of a small illustration business. Her fine artwork has been published in Superstition Review and exhibited in galleries and commercial spaces in Washington, D.C., Chicago, IL, and online. Through her illustration business, she celebrates strong women, particularly women lawyers, and sells prints and home goods featuring these designs in her online shop and locally. Her illustration work has appeared in Summerhouse, accompanied the documentary Thunderdome (2020), and the album Moab (2020) by Savannah King.