Rose Menyon Heflin

Artist Bio

Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, I spent the formative part of my childhood running wild and free - delightedly barefoot and practically feral - in the countryside. Compelled by the resulting love of nature, I majored in environmental studies and later studied plant sciences as part of a master’s program. While my OCD prevented me from completing the graduate degree, there is no such thing as a reformed botanist.

Admittedly, I did not return to visual art until my early thirties, but now I cannot imagine life without it. It has become apparent in recent years that art, nature, and culture-based travel are three of the few arenas in which I can successfully tackle the intractable OCD plaguing me. A cruel mistress, it is utterly unforgiving. In fact, I can only resist my debilitating perfectionism and persistent germophobia when I am making art, exploring outdoors, traveling, or crafting poems. Consequently, nature, visual arts, traveling, and writing are incredibly healing.

Artist Website

Artist Statement

Admittedly, I am materials-driven and heavily influenced by unconventional items that others disregard but that, to me, holds infinite potential. Utilizing ignored, discarded, and dismissed objects, I gleefully experiment, pushing the boundaries of a medium’s form, capacity, and meaning.

As a barefoot child exploring the countryside, I developed an intoxicating wanderlust and an unbreakable bond with nature, sparking the lifelong curiosity and devotion that compels me to employ natural and cultural items in my artwork. However, I am also prompted to use the exact opposite of natural and culturally unique objects, such as mass-produced hardware, to address environmental and cultural issues.

Besides the immediately dangerous aspects of our fractious relationship with Earth, my art spotlights the discriminatorily unfair and disproportionate burdens borne by marginalized communities as a result of a perpetually abusive system. Armed with unorthodox materials, I capture these willfully ignored issues through advocatory lenses that showcase the prejudice, maltreatment, and oppression inflicted by our cis-hetero patriarchal society, and/or I reimagine new eco-feminist futures of sustainability, equality, and justice.

Essentially, my art primarily strives to cultivate conversations about environmental and cultural preservation by incorporating unusual, unwanted, and unloved supplies, my work is scathingly critical of both our individual and collective actions, encouraging the audience to criticize, prevent environmental degradation, open their minds, and change their personal habits. Alternatively, my art can be utterly reverent, seducing the viewer with the beauty, power, and intricacy of nature or culture and encouraging gentler conversations. The atypical materials I utilize are frequently the catalyst for invaluable discussions, be they aloud or internal. Ultimately, my objective is to initiate a dialogue that will continue beyond the gallery.