Wilcoxon’s current series of boat paintings portrays a distinctively different mood. There is more darkness, more hurt, and a deep, but quiet kind of sadness. They are devoid of the humor that pervades her previous work. While she has used boat images before, she has never worked on a series of them. She photographs boats, boat yards, and old hulls in and around her waterfront neighborhood and then draws from memory or dives right into a painting. According to Wilcoxon, “I felt that the boat form could be explored on many levels: the metaphor of decay, my dealings with cancer, to dealing with our current federal administration. And the physical beauty that surrounds me is ever changing – the tide comes in, the tide goes out. The wind, the fog, the light, the clouds, the winters, the bird migrations, the marsh by my boat all affect my daily practice.”

Wilcoxon received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her work is in several permanent collections including The American University Museum, Washington DC, The Fine Arts Museum, Auchenbach Foundation of Graphic Arts in San Francisco, the Di Rosa Preserve in Napa, and the de Saisset Museum and Triton Museum in Santa Clara. She has taught at the College of Marin, UC Berkeley Extension, San Francisco Art Institute, JFK University, California College of the Arts, Center for the Book, National Institute of Art and Disabilities and The Richmond Art Center.

Adrift: New Works by Heather Wilcoxon, with be presented in conjunction with the ICA’s exhibition at Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco from June 17 – July 29.