Mary Beth Heffernan

Completed: 2010

Details: City of Los Angeles Individual Artist's Award, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 2010

Mary Beth Heffernan is a Los Angeles based artist whose work explores the intersection between language and physicality. She is Associate Professor of Sculpture and Photography at Occidental College. Heffernan earned her BFA at Boston University in 1987, graduating Magna Cum Laude and awarded the Kahn Career Entry Award. She earned her MFA in the Photography Program at California Institute of the Arts in 1994, and appointed Fellow in the Studio program at the Whitney Independent Study Program 1994-95.

Heffernan was awarded the 2010 COLA Individual Artist Fellowship, and supported by grants from the Durfee Foundation and Light Work. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at Craig Krull Gallery, University of the Pacific, Idyllwild Institute of the Arts, and Pasadena City College Art Gallery, the latter garnering a feature article in the LA Times. Group exhibits include High Desert Test Sites, LA Municipal Art Gallery, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, Torrance Art Museum, White Columns, Saide Bronfman Center for the Arts and 18th Street Art Complex in Santa Monica.

Heffernan’s art is included in numerous private and public collections, including the UCLA/Hammer Museum (The Book of Lies, Volume II, print collection), Light Work of Syracuse, NY, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York City Library (The Book of Lies, Volume II.)