Drysdale, Heather

At a very young age, Heather Drysdale was literally climbing fences to escape to the world on the other side, explore and wander. Heather’s childhood fed a growing fascination with the beauty of textures and colours all around her. She grew up in a creative family environment that included international travel as well as living in Venezuela. She experienced the intricacies of colour and texture from her mother who taught her the traditional arts of tailoring, quilting and knitting, as well as from watching her father tend to his lush and beautiful gardens.
Heather formalized her talents and graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1983), majoring in textiles and weaving with a minor in art history. Her career path diverted from textiles to the medium of paint and after a successful career of over 32 years as a decorative painter, Heather has left her distinguished mark in homes and businesses throughout Atlantic Canada. Her most enjoyable canvas is at the IWK Children’s hospital, where she has painted numerous murals.
Heather works at her studio in her home in Middle LaHave, Nova Scotia.

Artist Statement

Beauty is in the imperfection…the quirk of it. My art is a pictorial articulation of an organized world that through its gradual decay is full of visual nuances begging the questions: “What happened here?”, “Why?” and “Where?”. Daily, I am held hostage to the overtures of texture, line, shape and colour both in nature and in the urban landscape.
My imagery is created using various media such as acrylic, pastel, fabric, plaster, foils and various oddities placed on canvas and board in an intuitive state of mind. I arrange these elements into what I think is visually appealing or visually abrasive. While erosion is a wearing away of, my art becomes a building up of layers to imitate the same breaking down of time and pattern. Time is a precious commodity that is never within the boundaries of control. Processes are evolutionary, forever changing, breaking barriers of the rigidity of newness.