Catching Light: The Art of Architecture

Upcoming show at Evanston Art Center

I'm busy finishing up new work for a show at the Evanston Art Center opening April 29th and running through May 26th. 

My current mixed media work with glass explores the experience of the built world. I came to my art practice via a career in healthcare. My approach to my work is rooted in my understanding of embodied cognition. Borrowing from the material vocabulary of contemporary architecture, Reflect brings the ubiquitous yet overlooked medium of glass into a conceptual dialogue about material, methods of making and embodied experience. Light reflecting on permanent architectural surfaces creates ephemeral moments of visual interest and discovery. Movement through the cityscape introduces geometric distortions and rhythms that engage our biologically rooted inclinations to decode information embedded in the geometries around us. In so doing, these architectural abstractions transform vast factory-made structures into familiar moments. Living well in urban settings requires new ways of seeing beauty and staying connected to the natural world.

Reflect 3.4 WIP cutting Heather Hancock 2018

New pieces for the show include a new larger 30" x 48" size and vertical proportion which offers a bold and more elaborated cityscape. Metal edging and a simple matte black frame gives a clean modern presentation of the work. 

Reflect 3.4 WIP thin-setting Heather Hancock 2018

Reflect 3.4 WIP grouting Heather Hancock 2018

Mark your calendar for April 29th 1-4 and come see all new work at the Evanston Art Center. Or happy to meet you there anytime during the month of May.

 

Reflect 3.1 | Mies cityview

30" x 48" panel | glass

Reflect 3.1 was commissioned for a residential setting and features an abstract view of Mies Van der Rohe's 900/910 Lake Shore Drive buildings. The clients selected a sophisticated palette of black and silver grays in the foreground, varied with pops of whites and pale gray in the background. Shimmering glass catches light to offer a dynamic art piece in this lovely architect renovated mid-century modern home. 

Reflect 3.1 | Mies cityview | glass  30" x 48"

Panel system: 1 5/16" strainer frame matte black with 11/16" anodized aluminum edging

Reflect 3.1 detail

Presenting at PechaKucha Chicago

I've got 6 minutes and 40 seconds to talk about my journey with light and glass at PechaKucha Chicago.

I'm presenting alongside 10 other Chicago area professionals including Maciej Kaczynski Architect, Studio Gang in Chicago, Garrett Karp Chicago Architecture Foundation in Chicago and Catherine Cox 4Seasons Global in Chicago. 

Should be a great evening. 

Catching Light

20 slides x 20 seconds each at PechaKuchaChicago 

Tuesday, September 5th 8pm | Martyrs | 3885 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL

 

 

 

 

Ideas. Stories. Art. Music. Social Activism. Food. Beer.

Tickets in advance are recommended

Grow | re-imagining urban spaces

Enjoyed working on a massive canvas for Evanston Streets Alive 2016 to offer pedestrians a moment of surprise. Grow transforms built world elements into organic, growing foliage. Realized in chalk, the piece offers an ephemeral experience, consistent with the constant change and transformation we find in nature. Living well in urban settings requires new ways of seeing beauty and staying connected to the natural world.

bike lane stencil | nature meets city

UrbanVines: nature meets city

I have an image of ivy growing on a crumbling concrete wall in my studio. I love the image of nature connecting with the built world; constant change and transformation happening on different time scales. I often circle back around to 'how do I grow ivy on a concrete wall?' Working on the installation plan for a temporary street intersection mural brought me back to cement board as a gorgeous textured canvas perfect for my work in glass. 

Nature meets city in UrbanVines.

UrbanVine 1.1 | glass and paint marker on cement board | 14"x14" c Heather Hancock 2016

UrbanVine 2.1 | glass and paint marker on cement board | 14"x14" c Heather Hancock 2016

Grow: Urban palettes + textures

Super excited to be creating another temporary public art installation. This time using spray chalk on an asphalt canvas at Main and Custer as part of this Sunday's Evanston Streets Alive event.

This project brings together my passion for bringing the natural world into urbanscapes and my growing interest in temporary public art. Working with temporary materials offers an ephemeral visual experience for pedestrians, echoing the constant transformation and changes we see in the natural world. 

I've re-worked one of my core visual concepts Grow as a large-scale intersection installation to offer pedestrians a moment of surprise and discovery. Borrowing from the streetscape palette, the installation will be created in weathered whites with pops of safety green and orange. 

concept Grow | nature meets city | c Heather Hancock 2016

Urban palettes

The most compelling aspect of working with glass is the way the material loves light, sparkling and shimmering to engage a viewer. Many of the images I take involve light and shadow. I get to the Lake Michigan lakefront as often as possible, usually in the morning, and am amazed at the constant variation in light and palette and texture of the lake bounded by rock and sky. I am starting to explore how to translate this sometimes subtle light and color into a shimmering glass palette in a spare yet luminous art object.

Urban palettes: Lake Michigan | 14"x14" 

The starting point for this exploration is using an image from a specific date to develop this palette and vocabulary. 

work-in-progress | Urban palettes | Lake Michigan May 03 2016 | 14"x 14"

work-in-progress | Urban palettes | Lake Michigan May 28 2015 14"x14"

work-in-progress | Urban palettes | Lake Michigan Feb 16 2016 14"x14"

Reflect | urban vocabulary

Glass loves light. Reflecting, shimmering, sparkling, refracting. I work with glass to create luminous experiences that change with motion and light.

I think a lot about what draws our attention, and why. An element of surprise or unpredictability always makes us notice. In among the repetitive forms of our cityscape, fluidity of light and reflection, unusual perspectives and juxtapositions take on the qualities of the natural. So many of those moments involve glass. The perfect Miesian grid or the undulating balconies of the Aqua building offer endless visual interest when we consider architecture in interaction with movement and light. I use glass to re-create those moments and to offer a sustaining viewing experience that is infinitely variable.  

New work in Reflect series is underway in grayscale.

Reflect 3.2 | Aqua 24"x24" : Reflect 4.1 | Chase tower 24"x24" : Reflect 2.3 | Mies 900 LSD 24"x24"

Reflect 3.2 | Aqua 24"x24" : Reflect 4.1 | Chase tower 24"x24" : Reflect 2.3 | Mies 900 LSD 24"x24"