CIARA HEATHERMAN

ARTIST BIO

Ciara Heatherman graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education from Ithaca College in 2010. She has taught middle and high school visual art for 7 years in Upstate NY. She is currently a full time painter, parenting her toddler, and travels with her husband.

Ciara has spent the majority of 2020 in the Hill Country of Texas. Where she completed a series of 30 day painting challenges, which reinvigorated her painting practice.

Ciara is now focused on a new body of work inspired by the everyday magic she experiences living in Pennsylvania. She works from her sunlit home studio which overlooks a small lake, and is surrounded by the forest. She hopes to inspire others to see the beauty that can be found in our own backyards during this crazy time!

Ciara works in a variety of mediums, but is primarily focused on honing her skills in oil painting. Her paintings are representational, with expressive visible brush strokes. Ciara is deeply inspired by the symbolic implications of her subjects.

Ciara has had her work shown in Roberson Museum of Art, Broome County Artisan Gallery, Pelham Center for the Arts, and most recently, Ely Center for Contemporary Art.

Ciara has always wanted to be an artist growing up. She began seriously drawing in middle school, and never stopped. She was even voted “Most Artistic” for her high school senior superlatives. She was accepted into Pratt Institute at Munson Williams Proctor with a Presidential Scholarship based on her portfolio review. She decided that she better have a backup plan, and ended up graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art Education from Ithaca College.

She was a public school middle and high school teacher for over 7 years. However, she always felt she was an artist first, and a teacher second. Although she enjoyed all the connections she made with her students and coworkers, she still felt she needed the space to give her personal artwork a chance to develop further. In 2017, she resigned from her teaching position to start a family and begin painting full time.

It wasn’t until her daughter was born the following year, that she felt truly called to get to work! Now she is creating every day, hoping to leave a legacy for her daughter, and for other artist mothers to be brave enough to grow to their fullest potential.

One of her favorite quotes is “you can be a masterpiece, and a work in progress at the same time.”

Website: www.ciaraheathermanfineart.com
IG: @ciaraheathermanfineart