In Love and Pain - THE NEIL YOUNG SERIES by Jenice Heo

Artist Jenice Heo
(Click photo to enlarge)
We have highlighted artist Jenice Heo here before, most notably for her work with Gary Burden on The Neil Young Archives for which Neil Young won his very first Grammy Award in 2010.

Jenice Heo’s NEIL YOUNG SERIES will be on display at STRUCK Contemporary in Toronto until February 2016. A portion of the sales will be donated to David Suzuki’s Blue Dot Campaign.

From Nartional Music Center | Canada by Juliette Jagger:

As one of the most iconic musicians of the past five decades, Neil Young’s contributions to Canadian iconography and to the canon of rock ‘n’ roll are irrefutable. Having penned some of the most poignant protest anthems, fragile love songs, and self-aware balladry of a generation, Young has long been the sort of singular voice that aches under the weight of social realism and tenderly illuminates that which exists at the core of the human condition.

To most music fans, Young is something of a legend, but to Los Angeles-based visual artist Jenice Heo, he’s a life-long friend. Both she and her husband and creative partner, Gary Burden—who is best known for designing some of rock’s most iconic album covers, including Young’s After The Gold Rush and Joni Mitchell’s Blue—have known and worked closely with Young for decades.

After the three took home a Grammy Award for their combined efforts on the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 Box Set in 2010, Heo was compelled to begin work on what would eventually become known as the NEIL YOUNG SERIES.

Comprised of thirteen oil paintings on found objects and mixed media assemblages, the series was originally inspired by a small scale assemblage titled “NEIL Letters,” which appeared on the cover of the box set. “Neil loved the Wallace Berman series with the hand holding the transistor radio,” says Heo. “When we couldn’t get the rights to use his art on the box set, Neil asked us to do a rendition of the hand but with cards, using various images from his archive. He loved that first piece and so I was encouraged to move forward with no trepidation.”​

Neil Face With Hand
by Jenice Heo
Each of the 13 assemblages, which will be on display at STRUCK Contemporary in Toronto until February 2016, takes its title from a Neil Young song, and seeks to provide a unique and personal glimpse into the heart and soul of the man who wrote them. “The intriguing part of assemblage is that the whole picture​ ​represents the sum of its distinct parts,” says Heo. “​It is collecting relevant images and putting them together in an informative way to depict Neil’s life.​ ​My intention is that the attached objects retain their ​individual character and soul, yet contribute toward a gestalt that unifies the entire visual​ ​field. I like things to disappear, sometimes reappear, but ultimately blend into a patchwork of​ ​sorts.”

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“This series was never really meant to, in a conventional sense, illustrate Neil’s songs,” adds Gary Burden.

“It was always about expressing what Neil meant to Jenice and I think that’s what makes it so true.”
By nature, we are constantly deducing the sum of our lives through the filter of another’s gaze, however, we are rarely gifted the chance to see it rendered as beautifully as in Heo’s NEIL YOUNG SERIES. When asked her thoughts on the significance of her own work and friendship on Neil’s life, Heo modestly replied: “Neil has expressed how true the art felt for him, but his creative process is insulated within him; it’s the other way around where he is the influencer.”

More on "In Love and Pain - THE NEIL YOUNG SERIES by Jenice Heo" at Nartional Music Center | Canada.

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