Museum’s latest exhibition ‘not subtle’ when tackling issues
The first painting of this show came after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 demolished a historic Brooklyn neighborhood near Julie Heffernan’s home.
The artist had been inspired years before, too many times. Heffernan’s frustration comes from how people continually irritate nature’s delicate balance and contribute to natural and man-made disasters.
In her painting, “Self-Portrait with Red Tent,” people hide in a shelter while water laps at its edges. Unbothered, the people watch movies and play cards while ignoring a man drowning nearby. In the distance, oil rigs burn against a smoke-tinged sky.
“It was clear to me that things hadn’t started with Sandy,”
Heffernan said during a phone interview. The burning rigs reference the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest marine oil spill in history.
“It was around
Sandy that I decided not to be subtle anymore.”
Little is understated in “When the Water
Rises: Recent Paintings by Julie Heffernan,” one of the latest exhibitions at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA.
Its timing is almost too appropriate.
The sea level has risen in Hampton Roads by14 inches since 1950, according to sealevelrise.org. Small increases in sea level leads to more street flooding during high tide, and it is exacerbated during rainstorms, including hurricanes. Locals don’t need statistics, though. Residents are rebuilding after last year’s Hurricane Matthew and cleaning up after tropical storm Michael a week ago. The death toll for Michael climbed to 31this week from its sweep from Florida to Virginia.
Even President Donald Trump, one of the most vocal naysayers against the idea of climate change, last week said he no longer considers it a hoax. He still doesn’t believe that humans are making it worse, however.
The Virginia Beach museum has tackled issues of sea level rise for years, not only through its exhibitions but also by opening the gallery to community conver-
“It was clear to me that things hadn’t started with Sandy. It was around Sandy that I decided not to be subtle anymore.”
Julie Heffernan