Julie Heffernan, a Yale educated painter, an intellectual artist of this time captures the mind and the soul in each of her paintings. Many of her paintings have an older and more sophisticated style similar to Old Master paintings.
If you are not familiar with the term "Old Master" it refers to the skill of painters found before the 19th century with European origins.
The complexity and the level of details found in almost all of her paintings reflects the theatrical imagination within Heffernan. Although many of her paintings are inspired by her two sons, her art takes a more feminized tone rather than a stronger male brute found in artwork of other artists' with similar style. The style in Hefferman's work is a transformation or an evolution from cultural adolescences to imposed maturity found in today's society.
What started out as animal flesh later turned into rolled soil that soon became the skin of the earth held up by the boy in the picture above. The meaning is seen as a young boy holding up what lies inside: rocks, roots and darkness; which is symbolic to modern times in societies all over the world. Julie Heffernan's latest work entitled "Boy, O Boy" is on view at PPOW Gallery in Chelsea.
