All my life I have studied what is underneath. The process of uncovering layers—places that are vibrant, dark, passionate, mysterious, hidden, and utterly luminous—excites me. Throughout my life what has interested me most is seeing the psychological complexity in everyone around me. I have focused my thirty-four year psychotherapy practice on excavating truth—understanding and helping others to see what is not immediately visible. As an artist, I work spontaneously on a vigorous but unplanned search for answers, where each layer of color and mark, each moment, each brush stroke informs the next.
Though as a woman and a psychotherapist I rely on language, I paint from a place without words. Here I speak through my love of color, through the textures of thick, sensuous paint, and with the light that emerges through transparent glazes. My palette is informed by what I see, internally and externally—the colors of water, light, shadow, rock, erosion, pain, passion, fullness. Using many layers of paint, charcoal and ink, I strive to build up a sense of breath and expansion, wanting my viewers to be drawn into their own emotional layers and interstices. In layering paint and color into palpable textured areas on the canvas—sometimes thick, sometimes thin—I access deeper and more complex levels in myself and in my work. Always present for me is a vigorous pursuit of the balance between intensity and stillness. This is reflected in the juxtaposition between vibrant form and expanded space that is ever present in my paintings.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 Pryor Fine Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2015 Heidi Berrin Shonkoff: The Space In Between, Room Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2014 Heidi Berrin Shonkoff: Summer Granite, Alta Bates Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2006 Heidi Berrin Shonkoff: Layers, Paintings, Buccis, Emeryville, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017 Pryor Fine Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2016 Pro Arts Open Studios, Berkeley, CA
2015 Bay Area Women Artists, O’Hanlon Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2015 Jurors: Donna Seager & Suzanne Gray, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley
2015 BOLD! O’Hanlon Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2015 Juror: Robert Green, Robert Green Gallery, Mill Valley
2015 Heidi Berrin Shonkoff: PRO ARTS Open Studios, Berkeley, CA
2014 HERE! Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2013 Array, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2013 National Juried Show, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Marin, CA
2013 Juror: George Rivera, Executive Director and Senior Curator, Triton Museum of Art, Honorable Mention
2012 COLLECT! Invited exhibition submission, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2012 Berkeley Art Center Member's Showcase, Berkeley, CA
2013 Courage, PRO Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA
2011 Visual Aid’s Big DeaI, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Private Eyes: Artists Visions, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Marin, CA,
2010 Juror: Andrea Schwartz, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 Annual Juried Show, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes, CA,
2009 Juror: Jeremy Morgan, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2009 Positively Ageless, Fourth Street Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2009 Members’ Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2009 Visual Aid’s Big Blue Deal, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Members’ Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2008 Visual Aid’s Big Deal XIII, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Annual Juried Show, Gallery Route One, Inverness, CA,
2008 Juror: Donna Seager, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2007 Members’ Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2007 Positively Ageless, Fourth Street Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2007 Winter Warming, Mad River Post, San Francisco, CA
2007 Visual Aid’s: Big Deal XII, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2006 Visual Aid’s: Big Deal XI, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Pryor Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA
PUBLICATIONS
Traditional Home Magazine, Featured cover article, article
The New York Academy of Medicine, NYC Psychoanalytic Conference Brochure, brochure cover.
The Psychotherapy Institute, Berkeley, CA, poster.
The Psychotherapy Institute, Fortieth Anniversary Commemorative Journal, Vol. VI, 2012, journal cover.
Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility, Boston, MA, May 2008, center page.
Smity, Terry. Editor-Arts, The Petaluma Post, Vol. XXI, 2008, #256, p. 4, Gallery Route One exhibit announcement image.
LARGE COMMISSIONS
2010 - Tropicana Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
AWARDS
2013
Honorable Mention, National Juried Show, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Marin, CA
SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Law Offices of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, San Francisco, CA
Frances S. Anderson, New York City, NY
Steve Ellis and Cathy Summer, Boulder, CO
Eric Sherman, and Michael McCabe, New York City, NY
Ed and Stephanie Lebow, Washington D.C.
Bill Ritter, ABC News, New York City, NY
EDUCATION
Masters in Social Work, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Bachelor of Arts, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, Phi Beta Kappa
Private Intensive Painting Study with Christine Peirano