(Left to Right) "Passing Resemblance," 2014. Silicone, doll body, hair, 24 x 22 x 22 in. Photo: Scott Tebeau. "How It Is," 2019. Pewter, 4 x 3 x 3 in. Photo: Mario Gallucci
Heidi Schwegler works in the interstitial ruins of Beijing, Los Angeles, New York City and suburban America.
She rescues haphazardly disused scraps from the bowels of the megalopolis: chicken bones, Big Gulps, broken signs, lost shoes, crumpled pylons, take out containers. Plastic, fiber, and bone: these materials decay but never decompose. A peerless craftsperson, she resynthesizes her sources into facsimiles with cast glass, gold, silver, wax, resulting in artwork that persists in a “living death.” Exhibitions of her work have been presented by WBG London Projects, London, United Kingdom; Asphodel, Brooklyn, New York; Sheldon Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; and the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon. Schwegler is a MacDowell Fellow, and a Yaddo Artist-in- Resident. Reviews of her work have appeared in Art in America, Daily Serving, ArtNews, Modern Painters, and the Huffington Post. Heidi Schwegler is the founder of the Yucca Valley Material Lab, a platform for making and thinking.