Heather Leigh Douglas is a New York artist, specializing in encaustic medium and oil painting. She grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey and attended the University of Vermont as a studio art major. While at UVM she was encouraged to explore a variety of mediums which included painting, photography, ceramics and batik. This exploration, within the art field, has continued throughout her life.
Upon graduating in 1976, Heather moved to Boston and began selling her Batik landscapes as well as participating in her first juried exhibitions. Five years later she found herself in Rockland County New York, where she resides today.
For years she dedicated herself to photography while raising her three daughters. When she met and subsequently married her second husband he encouraged her to begin painting again. Once she put brush to canvas there was no turning back and photography became a means of providing source material for her paintings.
Always curious, Heather saw an encaustic painting in an exhibit in 2008 and was fascinated with the medium. She then embarked on a study of encaustics taking workshops and learning everything she could about the process.
This art form encompasses the three major disciplines Heather has spent her life involved with, at one time or another. Encaustic painting is an ancient process using a combination of melted wax, oil paint and varnish, while allowing for the incorporation of other elements.
Heather creates many of her pieces using her own altered photographs which are transferred and assimilated into the final encaustic. These pieces combine the use of wax (familiar from her days of batiking), oil paint (with a painters eye for composition and color), and her black and white photographs.
Today Heather divides her time between oil painting and encaustics often working on commissioned pieces. The two mediums produce dramatically different styles of work. Heather’s oil paintings are primarily realistic landscape and garden scenes. Her encaustics tend to be smaller pieces but range in scope from completely abstract to gritty urban scenes, as well as some mixed media and the occasional landscape.
She has exhibited in national and international juried shows across the country including galleries and museums. She has had numerous solo shows in the New York Metropolitan area of both her oil paintings and encaustics. Her paintings are held in private and public collections.
She participates in artistic fund-raisers, donating paintings to needy charities for auction, to raise funds for the local animal shelter, parks and art organizations.
She is also pursuing a certificate from New York University in “Art Collection Management and Display”. This has led to a research internship at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. She is obtaining a solid background in the proper methods of exhibition design, curating, conservation, care and handling of art work, registration and provenance.
Heather is a member of Oil Painters of America, The National Association of Women Artists in New York, New England Wax and Artists In The Parks, which is affiliated with the Palisades Parks Conservancy.
Her work can be seen at: www.heatherdouglas.com
