MAY HEEK (1984 NL)
My name is May, I am working mainly with the medium photography, print and paper based techniques. In my work I explore surface qualities, gradations and
subtle material elements. The images take into consideration the various colored shades and grey scales of a transition. A fundamental motive for this interest
is my fascination with the psychological meanings for the color grey, the hue between black and white. I examine the possibilities to integrate the values
of a gradient in a photograph. By isolating a segment of the gradation on a surface, it is often obscure out of which material the outer boundary is made. Finally
it is through installation that a swatch of color transitions unfolds itself.
I studied Fine Art at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design from 2003 to 2007. With a history in painting and drawing, I graduated with photography
related work in 2007. As a result of my BFA I published "Places&Persons" with Veenman Publishers (NL). In the summer of 2007 I received a scholarship
at ITS#SIX festival in Trieste (IT) to study at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I attended ‘Photo Global', a one-year critical photography certificate program.
Where my thesis advisor was Eva Respini (MoMA, curator photography) and in 2008 I exhibited my work at the Visual Arts Gallery in New York.
That same year Dear Dave Magazine published the series ‘Slumber' in NR. 4. In 2010 I received a grant of the Amsterdam Fund for the arts and presented the
project ‘Color and Transition Samples' at RC de Ruimte Amsterdam. My work includes group shows at Nieuw Dakota, Art Amsterdam, ING, Gemeente Museum
The Hague, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem.
Statement
The windshield of a car containing a blue color gradation to protect the driver from the sunlight, reflections on a piece of aluminum foil and a gradient on
the breast of a pigeon. These subtle material elements play an important role in my work; they give me insight in color, shape and the matters of our
everyday existence. Within these mundane situations I explore color transitions and almost cosmic surfaces. Subsequently I have always been drawn
to the potentiality of photography to register these gradations in a single frame and the evocative qualities it brings.
Colour and Transition Samples
In ‘Colour and Transition Samples’ I concentrate on the delicate structures of a gradient and the reflections on surface qualities. These images takes into
consideration the various colored shades and grey scales of an elusive transition or discontinuance. The project explores the visualization of gradients
in an apparent inconspicuous everyday setting. In which the visual emergency seems to be more important than the original context and the collected
‘Samples’ could represent a revision of an experience.
Columbidae
The series ‘Columbidae’ focuses on the breast of a pigeon: a gradation from dark- to light grey and from violet to beige. Pigeons seem to be all the same
because of their solid grey color. However if you concentrate on the pattern of their feathers, they reveal a natural gradient of a million different shades,
which distinguish each bird from the other. This condensed visibility; influence our perception of grey and brings the filth of the city and the sublime together.