In the Gallery: The Art of Anne Heller
March 11, 2025
Nature: Shadows Within
On Display March 11-April 30, 2025
Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary in Belmont will feature the provocative works of local artist Anne Heller for the months of March and April.
About the Exhibition
Anne says of her paintings; "Moving between countries as a child created a disjointed path, and a fragmented sense of myself. I am aware that my exposure to the psychoanalytic process has influenced my style of painting. I am moved to express something incomplete, —something rough-edged. I see these 'rough edges' as something beyond the obvious, something shadowy and distorted that is embedded in the subconscious." In her paintings there is often a sense of something unresolved, something in turmoil. In the portraits, there is tension; in landscapes there are storms. She says, "For me painting is not simple. It is full of contradictory impulses, but I try to forge these into a cohesive whole that expresses something vibrant, true and expansive."
About the Artist
Anne Heller was born in New York City. When she was four her parents divorced, and she moved to England with her mother. Throughout her childhood and young adulthood, she moved back and forth between these countries. This has given Anne a rich cultural background.
While living in London, Anne's mother was involved in the Freud clinic and had friends and colleagues connected with the London Psychoanalytic Institute. Anne's Grandmother had been a patient of Sigmund Freud in Austria, and when the war broke out, she moved with the Freuds to their London residence. Anne often lived with her grandmother, Anna Freud and the cook in the Freud household. Anne also spent time and has wonderful memories of living in a small fishing village in Suffolk, on the east coast of England. The village was a place of solace, where she felt close to farms, the earth, animals. The landscape of this area is flat and windy; its bleak purity has a special beauty for Anne. Trees are a recurrent image in Anne's work. "Paintings of trees are about being rooted in the earth, yet restless — reaching towards the vastness of the sky and to dimensions beyond. I often paint trees as barren and distorted, which to me, seem to suggest darker emotions and realities. When I paint houses, they emerge as places of isolation or as shelters in a stormy world.”
Anne received her BA and MA in English literature from Cambridge University, England. Later in life, she studied for a year at the Museum of Fine Arts School, Boston. Anne primarily works with soft and oil pastels.