Heather Hancock | image c T. Favarula 2023
ARTIST STATEMENT
What attracts and sustains our attention? This question inspires my artwork today and initially propelled my career in healthcare. Working for more than a decade in Chicago hospitals gave me a deep understanding of the importance of our surroundings to well-being: humans thrive in engaging environments. Our minds are designed to seek out information at the intersection of pattern and chaos.
I am inspired by the vibrancy and information I notice in the world around me. The fluidity and constant transformations in the natural world contrast with the predictable segments and hard transitions I find in the cityscape. Light connects these two worlds, bringing both clarity and complexity to the everyday.
I use glass given its unique capacity to catch light and engage viewers. My work pairs urban-inspired form and line cut in glass with the transitory qualities of light. The work comes alive with even a tiny glimmer of light or viewers’ motion to offer an infinitely variable visual experience. There’s this contradiction of glass being both fragile and impossibly strong. The interplay of glass and light is so ephemeral but the pieces themselves are enduring. Setting glass alongside industrial materials such as grout, cement and metal points to the contrast between the natural and manmade worlds and creates tension between light and dark, brilliance and opacity, vibrancy and restraint, fragility and permanence.
BIO
Heather Hancock is an interdisciplinary artist making mixed media art with glass. Her art is inspired by how people are engaged by information in the natural and built worlds. Heather’s work is informed by a Master of Science degree and a decade-long career in healthcare. Working in Chicago hospitals gave her a deep understanding of how engaging environments contribute to well-being. A Master Class at Orsoni Studio in Venice, Italy provided the technical basis for her work.
Heather’s work hangs in private residences, and corporate, healthcare and government collections across the North America and Asia.
EDUCATION
2006. Architectural installations | Chicago Mosaic School, Chicago, IL
2005. Master Mosaic Class: History, Theory and Application | Venice, Italy
1993. MS in Speech Pathology and Audiology | University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
EXHIBITIONS
2019. New Glass Now | Corning Museum of Glass | Corning, NY
2019. KIAF Seoul | Korean International Art Fair with Gallery Sklo | Seoul, South Korea
2019. Original Voices, group show | Ken Saunders Gallery | Chicago, IL
2018. Catching Light: the Art of Architecture (solo show) | Evanston Art Center
2017. Art Expo NY 2017 with Blink Gallery | Manhattan, NY
2016. Open Studios Evanston | Evanston, IL
2016. Artificial Turf | CoStar Collective group show Evanston, IL
2015. Proust project | Ken Saunders Gallery, Chicago, IL
2015 Proust project | American Psychoanalytic Association | art exhibit | New York City
2014. Ideas in Glass | Creative Co-Working | Evanston, IL
2012. Annual Glass Group Show | Water Street Gallery | Douglas, MI
2011. Lake Effects (2-person exhibit with painter Byron Gin) | Uncommon Ground on Clark, 3800 N Clark | Chicago, IL
2011. Imagining Mind | Solo Show at Montgomery Ward Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago | Chicago, IL
2008. Artist Project | Artropolis at Merchandise Mart | Chicago, IL
SELECTED PRESS and PUBLICATIONS
Juried selection of Reflect 3.2 Curve for New Glass Review, 40, 2019. Corning Museum of Glass. Corning, NY.
Original Voices 2019 exhibition catalog. Ken Saunders Gallery. Chicago, IL.
Juried selection of Reflect 1.0 for New Glass Review, 39, 2019. Corning Museum of Glass. Corning, NY.
Galland, Ellen (2018, May). Local Artists and Designers Ponder How to Help Others Flourish, Roundtable, Evanston, IL. Retrieved from RoundTable. Full article
Bookwalter, Genevieve (2018, May). Shout Out: Heather Hancock, health care worker turned glass artist. Retrived from Chicago Tribune. Full article.
Voyage Chicago Thought Provokers Series (2018, August). Check out Heather Hancock’s Artwork. Retrieved from Voyage Chicago. Full article
Kozul Naumovski, Zlata (2016, Spring). Vision Quest: 3 artists who are making the medium the message. NS Modern Luxury, p. 80.
Invited speaker. Reflecting the Built World: Glass and the Cityscape. American Glass Guild Annual Conference (2015, July).
(Re)Building Downtown: A Guidebook for Revitalization (2016). Smart Growth America, p. 11. Image of Flourish. Retrieved from Smart Growth America.
Barry, Virginia C. (2015). Scratch and Sniff Proust with art by Heather Hancock. Eden Prairie, MN: NXTGEN Interactive.
Degliantoni, Lisa (2015, November). Interplay of Glass and Light. Evanston Magazine, p 28-29.
Konrad, Kelly (2013, October). House to Home. Make It Better. 41-43.
Linthicum, P. (2013, June). Scan. Looking at Glass. Retrieved from http://lookingatglass.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/scan-by-heather-hancock/
Hunding, Rhys (2012, July). Masterpiece Theater. CS Interior, p. 112.
Gunnerson, Tate (2011, July 7). Creative women: Heather Hancock. Make it Better.
Hammer-Dijcks, B. (2010). Breakout: your pathway to success. Blurb.com. 3 pieces featured in the book.
SELECTED PUBLIC INSTALLATIONS
2018. 6 piece art commission for Sutter Cathedral Hills Hospital, San Francisco, CA.
2016. 12 piece art commission for Kaiser Permanente Hospital, San Diego, CA.
2016. Grow. 15’ x 30’ | temporary urban intersection mural. Commissioned by Streets Alive.
2015. Flourish. 5’ x 30’ | temporary exterior art installation. Commissioned by Downtown Evanston.
2015. 3 piece art commission for Hahn Building lobby, Evanston, IL. Commissioned by Robinson Realty.
2013. Link. 6’ x 35’. 5553 Clark St. Chicago, IL. Commissioned by Andersonville Chamber of Commerce and Good News Only Gallery.
2011. 5 piece art commission for Loyola Medical Center, Burr Ridge, IL
2007. Installation at Uncommon Ground restaurant at Devon, Chicago, IL. Commissioned by Helen and Michael Cameron.
Reflect 3.2 Curve | 48”x30” | handcut glass c Heather Hancock 2018 Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Now international survey through Jan 2020
“Heather Hancock uses glass inlay to re-create the geometries of mid-century modern architectural facades, capturing a sense of the ephemeral within their otherwise highly rational compositions.”
“It feels like I’m looking through a window into the city.”
“ If one of the challenges of an artist is to make viewers look in a new way at what is familiar to them, Ms. Hancock has presented a body of work that does that in an arresting and rewarding way.”
“I enjoy walking around the piece to see how the light changes it.”
“Heather’s incandescent images that were brought to mind as she responded to the fragrances of Proust’s world will encourage you to reflect on the open frontiers newly charted by science of mind.”
Chicago Tribune Q&A with Heather Hancock
Evanston artist Heather Hancock has lived in the north suburb since 1993. She primarily works with glass.
Q: How did you get involved with glasswork?
A: I came to my art practice via a career in health care. I worked for more than a decade in physical rehabilitation. I was passionate about helping others “live well” but there was a limit to what we could do in the health care setting. I came to see how important our physical surroundings are to our well-being, that beauty matters. Continue reading.
photo cred T. Favarula 2023
detail | REFLECT 3.7 4’x2.5’
detail | urbanVine 4’x3’