Annie Heisey

Annie Heisey (born 1980) is an artist and educator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned a BFA from Penn State in 2003 and an MFA from Boston University in 2007. After graduate school, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she taught at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Nike Blue Ribbon Studios while continuing her studio practice. During this time, she developed the bold colors and unusual imagery that became central to her work.

In 2016, Heisey returned to Pittsburgh and opened a full-time studio in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. Her work has been shown across the United States at venues including the Boston Center for the Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and Lemieux Galleries in New Orleans. Her work has also appeared in publications such as the Boston Globe and in exhibition catalogs from the Fitchburg Art Museum and the Boston Center for the Arts. Her pieces are included in private and corporate collections, including the Arthur S. Goldberg collection and the Pittsburgh Foundation.

“My work explores the gaps that exist between perception and “reality”. My personal experiences and emotions fuel my art, and I transform the intensely personal into something universal in which anyone can see themselves. Through unusual imagery and color combinations my paintings and sculptures turn the familiar into the beautifully strange, inviting you to question what is real – and what you choose to believe.”

Photo by Matt Dayak