About the Artist

Artist Heather Hallberg

About the Artist:

My name is Heather Hallberg, and I’m an artist. I grew up in the hills of New Mexico in a little town outside of Santa Fe, called Los Alamos. My parents, from an early age, encouraged my sister and me to learn and explore everything around us. Family vacations included long road trips, filled with stops at every museum, gallery, weird gift shop, and historical tourist trap on the map. We’d stop to look at geological formations, shell hunt on beaches, and wander dusty bookshops for treasures. These experiences fostered a deep love of history and collecting for me — I collect everything from shells to rocks, keychains to books, board games to… well, the list goes on.

I also collect art. I earned my BA in Art History from Colorado State University, and the classes I took as basic requirements ended up being some of the most educational for me. While not my main focus, classes like sculpture and printmaking opened my eyes to creating art in a way that I had never ventured before. I’ve changed my style a lot over the years and even taken a few years off, but I think I’m finally finding my artistic voice.

Mixed with my passion for history, my current body of artwork explores many facets and materials. I reference my own personal fears and losses through elements of Victorian mourning rituals, haunted houses, witchcraft, the ocean — anything and everything can and does make it into my pieces. I’m starting to incorporate more 3D, tangible textures into my work, and this has led me to find a style that is both new to me and still feels like a homecoming.

While my style and medium choices have changed over the years, I’m most known for my darker aesthetic. Think gloom, Victorian funerals, death and the like. I started out working in acrylic paint only, but now include paper clay sculptures, beading, ribbon work, assemblage, and anything else that I stumble upon. I also put a lot of thought and effort into the experience around showing my work. Everything from the velvet tablecloths, to lit candles, to antique book stacks for display, to the font of my labels is curated to have an aesthetic. I want people to really feel something from all angles.

My work comes from a personal place, but the meaning is always up for interpretation by the viewer. The feedback I’ve gotten from people at my art shows has been really wonderful — positive or negative, it helps me see my own work from a different perspective.

I’m really proud of where my work is going. I think for a long time, I was afraid of making the art I like, too afraid that I couldn’t create with my hands what I see in my mind’s eye, or that it would be viewed as too weird or too strange. But I’ve come a long way and found an art community online that is supportive and shares a similar aesthetic style, and that has made a huge difference.

 

CV

  • Education: 
    • BA in Art, Art History from Colorado State University; minor in History, 2007
    • Mesa Verde Workshop course, University of Northern Colorado, 2006
  • Exhibitions:
    • 2022:
      • Sea Change exhibit, part of the first annual Deathly Nightshades Art Exhibition, Artlab, Fort Collins, CO
    • 2020:
      • Nacre Sanctum, exhibit part of The 3rd Annual Sketchy Halloween show, ArtLab, Fort Collins, CO (in-person event canceled due to Covid-19)
    • 2019:
      • Deep Rooted Patterns, exhibit part of The 2nd Annual Sketchy Halloween show, ArtLab, Fort Collins, CO
    • 2017:
      • This Haunted House, exhibit shown at Carnegie Center for the Arts, Fort Collins, CO
      • Written Word Vol. 3, Hallberg Fine Art group show at Carnegie Center for the Arts, Fort Collins, CO
      • Written Word Vol. 2, Hallberg Fine Art group show at Carnegie Center for the Arts, Fort Collins, CO
    • 2016:
      • Written Word Vol. 1, Hallberg Fine Art group show at Carnegie Center for the Arts, Fort Collins, CO
    • 2003-2007:
      • "The Choice" art installation, CSU Curfman Gallery, Fort Collins, CO
      • "Connoisseurship in Practice" research, display in CSU Clara Hatton Gallery, Fort Collins, CO
      • "Where Water Meets Land: Island Arts from the South Seas" research, display in CSU University Center for the Arts Art Museum, Fort Collins, CO