CHERISHED MEMORIES

To Heidi Yardley, an interior is rarely a static image. Instead, it’s a place inhabited by memory, atmosphere and unseen private ritual. When she paints a room, she seems to intuitively hone in on the tension between objects, the strange relationships of colour and shadow, and the lingering atmosphere made by those who live there. “Memory,” she notes,

“is rarely linear or cohesive; it falls like shards, it comes in strands and pieces.

I like the idea in my ‘broken’ still-life painting ( Untogether, above). The artwork holds together structurally but the details come from very different points in time.” Empty frames and chairs haunt her beautiful rooms. Moving deftly between colour and monochrome, Heidi has an innate ability to draw with both tenderness and incisive wit. Her paintings are quiet and magnetic, glowing with a sense of nostalgia and longing.