Stefanie Heinze

When I look at Heinze’s paintings, however, the sensation of “itchiness” I feel comes from the sight of her abstract forms existing in not so much as a state of being but one of becoming. Like Heinze claims, the forms in her paintings do exist in states of being without having to follow a certain protocol; but their behavior, though frozen in space and time, also undeniably suggests they are working to become something, anything. In this vulnerable stage of transformation that they inhabit, their awkward movements remind me of strange experiences and vague sensations we might come across when we ourselves undergo a state of becoming—a growth spurt, a mistake, a desire to stretch beyond limits, an argument within oneself, a wave of anxiety, a leap of faith, a meltdown, a yearning for something more. Subconscious as they are, these experiences are sure to differ from one person to another, but they share the sensation of an indistinct itch towards the resolution of uncertainty. It is through this connection to the uncertainty that we might relate to the abstract forms of Heinze’s paintings in more concrete ways than the fuzziness of forms that immediately meet the eye. We are similarly brought into the world and society not by our own volition, trying to understand ourselves through cycles of change in life, and more often than not, confused! Heinze powerfully captures the state of becoming inherent in this process by visualizing the interplay between the humor of clumsiness that it can involve and the gravity of the perplexing experience that it can be.

Art critics and institutions have been quick to interpret these complex worlds of Stefanie Heinze’s paintings as subversive critiques of cultural life, hierarchies of power, or gendered norms. In the artist’s works, familiar forms ranging from cigarettes, disembodied body parts, and animalesque figures indeed often appear in fantastical configurations that offer brash defiance to the fixity of our everyday social structures, even to the canon of male-dominated art history. But Heinze herself expresses more candid interest in the political potential to instigate internal change by reflecting in her paintings the aesthetics of the psyche and the imagination, or fundamental forces that power the fluidity behind any change. While Heinze’s work indeed responds to topical issues in contemporary culture and society, it does not center around or limit itself to them. Instead, it confronts and expresses a general flexibility of the subconscious that provides the necessary groundwork to begin changing the external structures from which social issues might arise. The artist is acutely aware of the natural ability of human perception to recognize familiar sensations as well as create entrances to new psychological or embodied experiences. As such, the deepest political capacity of Heinze’s work is twofold; it lies firstly in her work as an artist to confront uncertainty in order to translate experiences of change into visual form, and secondly, in the psychological identifications and reactions that her images may elicit in viewers.  

In the precarity of Heinze’s work, then, perhaps we can come to see and better embrace the uneasiness that naturally follows any process of change. If we are careful viewers, we might learn from Stefanie Heinze’s compositions to seek beauty in the chaos of the battlefield —to become emboldened in states of becoming and free to ooze or kick or hurdle through changes, whether personal or societal. To change, after all, requires one to confront the vulnerability of stepping into uncertain and unknown territory, which Heinze has allowed the canvases of her paintings to safely become for both herself and the ever-ambiguous forms of her imagination.