Jan Heginbotham, Painter and Sculptor

Jan Heginbotham, Painter and Sculptor

For decades, I’ve been known in the DC area as a figurative sculptor in bronze. Ten years ago, the lusciousness of color called to me. I began to explore painting, primarily oil on canvas. While recent work still leans toward figurative, it has become much less realistic, even surreal. My abstract sculptures now come to life as paintings in pastoral landscapes or interiors.

This is the second time my art has taken a dramatic turn. Through studies with Boris Blai and in AU’s MFA program, my sculptures leaned toward realisminfluenced by Early Greeks, Michelangelo, and Rodin. I often worked with live models.

Later, I transformed the three-dimensional figure in unexpected ways. Musical instruments, animals, even buildings, appear in human forms. Influences include Cycladic Greek, African, and Modern Art. Sources include music, dance, yoga, geometry, architecture and nature.

Houses have loomed large in my life and work. My husband and I have remodeled several. Transfigured houses turn up often in my sculptures and paintings. While I primarily explore their shapes, form, colors, and textures, a subtext is present: the emotional pull that housing has on people and how the time spent maintaining them can be all-consuming. The Householder series of paintings and sculptures is one aspect of my forty-year art career.

In painting and sculpture, the goal is the same; to create beautiful objects that are uniquely personal, have a true presence, and hopefully, a universal resonance. I aim to include fun and surprise.

My works are shown locally and nationally and have been commissioned for individuals, organizations, public spaces. I’ve taught sculpture at the university and community level. I now thoroughly enjoy an expanded creative life as a painter, and am eager to continue to share my body of paintings, and where appropriate, sculptures.

Please contact me about work seen here or on my website for further information.

X
X