GREGORY HEIN

About the Artist

Gregory Hein (b. 1960, Baltimore, USA) uses the materiality of paint to explore the limits of language. His work in painting and video examines chance, symbols, and sentimentality, crafting found-word abstractions that generate shapes spontaneously. Hein studied Studio Art and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Design at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. The artist has participated in exhibitions at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD; Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD; Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY; Artscape, Baltimore, MD; Strathmore Hall Arts Center, Rockville, MD; Dooby’s Cafe, curated by Liz Faust, Baltimore, MD; Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA; Torpedo Factory Target Art Gallery, Alexandria, VA; among others. Hein’s films have also been exhibited; in 2019, Animations on the Big Screen, Artscape, curated by Corrie Parks, Baltimore, MD; in 2022, Lights Out: A Group Video Exhibition, Brentwood Arts Exchange, Brentwood, MD. In 2020, Hein was juried into White Columns Artist Registry. Hein currently lives and works in the D.C. Metro area.  

Artist's Statement

I make found-word abstract paintings and films. I am interested in working with words that come from personal experiences; the chance, the banal, the uncomfortable. The words’ actual meanings become irrelevant, like a favorite movie quote, and I employ them as touchstones. My process is set in motion by the words’ visual transformation through paint. Abstracted found-words spontaneously make shapes in paint which I use to explore the limits of language. This organic evolution of shapes formed by words reflects the randomness of the source material itself. Painting in oil and acrylic on raw canvas, I begin with words in a grid layout, using custom modified paint. I work the materials to get shapes and all-over patterns. Different words will make different shapes. The collage of abstract colorful shapes on raw canvas moves translucent words in and out of legibility, like reading underwater. My paintings contend with moments that won’t let go, transforming them into documents of happy accidents and nonsense. I find an honesty to the nonsense. I need those strangely joyful experiences to keep me focused elsewhere, to forget that now is all there is.