Claire Heiney

Claire Heiney’s work incorporates materials sourced from their daily life: worn textiles, salvaged leather, and hair collected from the intimate space of the home. Through gestures such as sewing, burning, crumpling, or embossing, they explore the tensions between care and violence, desire, memory, and erosion. They plan to continue their experiments with leather—reproducing, for instance, the marks fabric leaves on skin—and to expand their hair-based work, previously two-dimensional, into sculptural forms.

Throughout the residency, the pieces created will be assembled into a non-traditional artist’s book: a collection of standalone, hand-held objects, each evoking a fleeting bodily sensation. This new direction reflects a desire to move beyond academic frameworks and toward a more embodied, tactile, and dialogic practice. They also hope to host a public event centred on material and gesture, and view the residency as a valuable opportunity to deepen their practice through exchanges with fellow artists and the local community.

Biography

Claire Heiney is an artist and researcher based in Michigan, currently an MFA candidate at Michigan State University. Their practice explores tactility, bodily memory, and the intimacy of gesture. Their work has been exhibited at the Broad Art Museum and supported by several research fellowships.

Recent exhibitions

2025	Claire Heiney: Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, solo exhibition, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, US
2024	Preface, group exhibition, Kresge Art Gallery, Michigan State University, East Lansing, US
2023	Claire Heiney: Resting Place, solo exhibition, Kresge Art Gallery, Michigan State University, East Lansing, US
2022	Confluence, group exhibition, Kresge Art Gallery, Michigan State University, East Lansing, US
2019	Lock & Key, group exhibition, Skylab Gallery, Columbus, US