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ARTIST STATEMENT
I've got my heart, hands and head in many media. With piano as my first love, I later found more loves – sculpture, drawing, painting and photography. And I've always been writing and sometime I perform as a singer/songwriter/poet Off Broadway. My poetry and lyrics find their way into my images at times especially the ink drawings of nudes – adding a literary component and taking sensual visuals to the cerebral plane.
Coming to NYC in the 80’s from Philadelphia, I “bopped around” various neighborhoods in the East and West Village and Brooklyn until settling in Hells Kitchen in the early 90’s.
Formally trained as a sculptor, my two dimensional work jumps off the wall. Some of my bold and spunky artwork is created for and about musicians, done while listening and inspired by them.
The human figure, nature and peace are favorite subjects.
Some of the artworks in the show at Pomaire have been exhibited at the Jazz Radio Station WBGO-FM in Newark, NJ.
I also now print and publish over 200 of my images as blank note cards and prints, selling to many shops in NYC, including several in the Theater District.
I exhibit primarily in New York, participating in Group Shows and Arts Events.
My clients and collectors include many well-known cultural organizations and performers in the Arts, Entertainment and Theater.
I've always been committed to creating art that is affirmative – with images that are inspiring and healing. Inspired by all that’s good and healthy – beauty, harmony, a dash of dissonance, pulsating rhythms, curvilinear notions, irony, fresh air, full moons. And at times, also inspired to speak out against war & injustice.
I'm not much different than a bee making honey, a spider spinning a web…while I'm mining the psyche and the spirit to make art.
I'm intuitive, instinctual and often impulsive and thoughtful artist, steeped in visual history from cave drawings to cartoons, from Willendorfs to windmills, frescos to figleafs, Polaroids to pixels.
I’m just a vessel at times – keeping myself able to participate in the act of creation which so many times feels truly divine.
Sometimes I move the hand…sometimes the hand moves me and I see tangible evidence.
I did that? Well I must have…it’s in my sketchbook and this one’s been there for 30 years…I forgot I did it.
Some marks on a surface coming from a chakra higher than a hot dog with everything.
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Resume
Education
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.
Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA.
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS, WORKS ON PAPER AND CANVAS
2012 Jadite Gallery, NYC Group Exhibit
2011 Art of Collaborative Giving, Wallingford CT. International Women’s Day Group Show
Queens Museum of Art, Legros Cultural Center SWAN Day Event. NY Group Show
2010 Estrogenius Festival, Manhattan Theatre Source, NYC. Group Show and my art used for all promotions
Fresh Fruit Festival Group Exhibit at Leslie Lohman Gallery, NYC. Group Exhibit
Jadite Gallery, NYC. Solo Exhibit “Love’s Body”
International Women Artist’s Salon, Exhibition ONE: Zero Gravity, Lolita bar, NYC Group Exhibit
Benefit for Chilean Earthquake, Gabriela Mistral Foundation, Silent Auction, New York Times, NYC
2009 Estrogenius Festival, Manhattan Theatre Source, NYC
Fresh Fruit Festival/Passion Exhibit Leslie-Lohman Gallery, NYC
Pomaire Restaurant, 371 W 46th St, NYC. One Woman Show “All for Love”
2008 A.I.R. Gallery, NYC Generations 6, Invitational and auction to benefit Code Pink
31st Small Works Exhibit, Washington Square East Galleries, NYU, NYC. Juried Group Exhibit
Theater for The New City, NYC. Art Into Action. Juried Group Exhibit
Ryan Chelsea Community Health Center, NYC.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Alumni Exhibit, Brooklyn, NY.
2007 MCCNY Jackson Hall Art Gallery, NYC. Group Exhibit
2006 Haven Arts, Bronx NY. Art of the Word. Group Show
2004 Yaffe Ruden Galleries, NYC. “Spring/Sing/Wing it” One-Woman Show
2002 Society of Illustrators, NYC. “Prevailing Human Spirit”. Group Show
Here is New York, NYC. Group Photography Show commemorating 9/11
1994 WBGO-FM Radio Station, Newark, NJ. "Music Seen" One-Woman Show
Visiones Jazz Club, NYC. One-Woman Show
1985 Amos Eno, NYC. Solo Exhibit
GROUP SHOWS: 1993-1982
International House Gallery, NYC. "Women of Peace” Curator, Exhibitor; Woodstock Town Hall, NY;
Worcester Artist Group, MA; Bronx River Art Gallery, NYC. "Consciousness Raising Art";
Now Gallery, NYC. "Micro Show"; Nolo Contentre, NYC; Jack Tilton Gallery, NYC.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS, SCULPTURE
2010 and 2009 Fresh Fruit Festival at Leslie-Lohman Gallery, NYC
1979 Suzanne Gross Gallery, Phila., PA. Group Exhibit;
Mid-Atlantic Small Sculpture Show, Univ. of DE. Catalog
PA Academy of the Fine Arts Fellowship Show, Phila. PA. Group Exhibit
Cultural Arts Center, Ocean City, NJ. Two-Woman Show
SELECTED PUBLISHED ART, ILLUSTRATION, PHOTOGRAPHY
2011 Maintenant 4, Three Rooms Press, artwork
2004 HERE IS NEW YORK, A Democracy of Photographs. Anthology from 9/11/01
1999 - 81 Stern’s Performing Arts Directory, Cover art; The Village Voice, NYC. Illustration; DOWNTOWN, NYC Regular contributor "Restino's Thought for the Day"; Stroker, NYC; WIN Magazine, NYC; Public Illumination Magazine, NYC; The WXPN Express, U of P, Phila PA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2011 http://sitkacreations.com/graphics/...
Love’s Body interview with Pamela Timmins, Pamorama Productions Youtube
2010 Serena Solomon review (Hells Kitchen Open Artists Studio): DNAinfo.com; Bonnie Rosenberg (City Arts)
2009 The New York Optimist www.newyorkoptimist.com/heidirussel...
1991 DOWNTOWN, Art Around Town, Gary Azon, 3/6/91. Signs of Intelligent Life, 3/13/91
1989-88 The New York Times, "Consciousness Raising Art", Vivien Raynor, 10/29/89
The Village Voice, Getting&Spending, Mim Udovitch,11/7/89 and 10/88
GRANTS, SCHOLARSHIPS, FUNDING
1991 Art Matters: 1990 Poets & Writers: 1989 PEN
1977 Scheidt Travelling Scholarship (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)
1973 Dolfinger-McMahon Full Tuition Scholarship (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS, COMMISSIONS
Here Is New York, A Democracy of Photographs. www.hereisnewyork.org. Hardcover book, Scalo Publ.
Museum of Television and Radio, NYC. (Bill Sims portrait Tshirt)“The Bonfire of the Vanities” Warner Bros.film 1989
Fales Collection, NYU Bobst Library, NYC. Ron Kolm Papers. Art cards, prints, ephemera; T.O. Immisch, Maritzburg Foundation, Germany; Gabriela Mistral Foundation, Chile/USA
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, NYC. Artwork commissioned for posters, Tshirts and promotions for the International Association of Schools of Jazz 1994
The African Activist Archive Project at Michigan State University, art on buttons, Tshirts, posters “Free Nelson Mandela”, “Nelson Mandela Released, Abolish Apartheid” and “Free South Africa”