Shift Happens Catalog

H A P P E N S

This catalog accompanies the SHIFT HAPPENS exhibition at GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro, March 12-June 26, 2021.

Sales to the public (in-person and by phone) begin when the exhibition opens on March 12th at noon. Inquiries are welcome by phone, 336–937–2952 or email at Edie.Carpenter@GreenHillNC.org SHIFT HAPPENS is organized by GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art in partnership with Heather Gordon and curated by Edie Carpenter. The exhibition is supported by Founding Members of GreenHill’s Women’s Gateway Circle, Jane & Richard Levy, and Mercedes Benz of Greensboro.

Mercedes-Benz of Greensboro GreenHill extends special thanks to patrons, board leaders and statewide members for their enduring commitment.

All artwork © the Artist © 2021 GreenHill

All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright.

No part of this publication may be repoduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the copyright holder.

Cover and Book Design: Becca Mortensen, Curatorial Assistant & Registrar, GreenHill GreenHill 200 North Davie Street, Box No.4 Greensboro, NC 27401 www.greenhillnc.org (336) 333-7460

H A P P E N S MARCH 12 - JUNE 26, 2021

Welcome Barbara Richter .........................................................................................................................9 Works on View ..........................................................................................................................11 Curator’s Statement Edie Carpenter ..........................................................................................................................12 The Exhibition ..........................................................................................................................14 Site-Specific Installations ..................................................................................................35 Artist Biography ....................................................................................................................46 Art Credits ................................................................................................................................47

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At a moment defined by social distancing and lingering uncertainty, SHIFT HAPPENS creates visual pathways that inspire contemplation. Bold and audacious, Heather Gordon’s transformation of COVID messaging into immersive installations map our collective journey from anxious isolation to resilience, compassion, and hope.

Through SHIFT HAPPENS, Gordon raises universal questions, including, “How do you feel?”. At GreenHill, we’re mindful that crises and conflicts offer opportunities to grow.

Experimenting with continued innovation, this exhibition explores visitor engagement (and connection) through new forms of dialogue and collaboration. In-person and online, visitor responses inform evolving multimedia installations that complement luminous paintings, meticulous drawings, and monumental murals. Gordon’s inventive approach inspires necessary conversations. The precision and beauty of her works spur curiosity and open possibilities for unexpected revelation.

Special thanks are due to Gordon and longtime GreenHill curator, Edie Carpenter, for embracing SHIFT HAPPENS and for envisioning this timely and brilliant collaboration.

Thanks are also in order for GreenHill staff whose diligent efforts made our pandemicinduced pivots possible.

The generosity of sponsors impacts all that we do. We are immensely grateful to Founding Members of the Women’s Gateway Circle, Jane & Richard Levy, and Mercedes Benz of Greensboro for their exhibition support, and we salute our board leaders and statewide members whose enduring commitment advances our mission as champions of North Carolina art.

Challenges rouse us to connect with ourselves and each other. To that end, SHIFT HAPPENS creates space for conversation and reflection. We hope we’ll see you soon at GreenHill!

Barbara D. Richter Executive Director and CEO

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Bush League, 2021, ink on paper....................................................................................................................................33 Echo Outward Facing, 2018, acrylic and colored pencil on canvas.................................................................25 Echo Facing Inward, 2018, acrylic and colored pencil on canvas......................................................................21 Essential Worker, 2021, oil on canvas...........................................................................................................................24 Essential Worker, 2021, oil on canvas...........................................................................................................................26 Essential Worker, 2020, colored pencil on Yupo.....................................................................................................15 Happy Talk, 2020, oil on canvas......................................................................................................................................19 Happy Talk, 2020, colored pencil on Yupo...............................................................................................................23 Happy Talk, 2020, oil on canvas....................................................................................................................................29 It Happened Sometime Between the Flowering of the Lotus and the Water Lily, 2019, oil on canvas..........................................................................................................22 It Is What It Is, 2020, ink on paper................................................................................................................................32 Light Through the Trees, 2019, oil on canvas............................................................................................................20 Mentiri, 2020, ink and pencil on graph paper............................................................................................................31 Protest, 2021, oil on canvas............................................................................................................................................30 Signal from Ganymede, 2019, oil on canvas..............................................................................................................27 Structure for a Sisyphus Stone, 2018, colored pencil on Yupo..........................................................................16 Sunshine Enema, 2020, ink and pencil on paper....................................................................................................34 Torpor, 2019, colored pencil on Yupo..........................................................................................................................14 Toxic, 2020, colored pencil on Yupo............................................................................................................................18 UNLESS, 2020, oil on canvas.........................................................................................................................................28 Unprecedented, 2020, graphite on Yupo...................................................................................................................17

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Heather Gordon sees herself primarily as a “map maker.” For over a decade she has explored means of visualizing data to recount personal and collective histories. Gordon’s wideranging investigations have led her to transcribe the atomic weight and ionization energies of elements in the periodic table; plot philosophical treatises and song lyrics in binary code; retrieve intensity readings to portray light in a 1936 forest; and reimagine charts of musical scales. Measurement strategies, coding, network routing and geometry all play roles in Gordon’s approach to artmaking. They form the basis of her conceptual methodology for producing a “map of a story shape”, as does her study of Erik Demaine’s scientific research on origami folding patterns. The large drawing Structure for a Sisyphus Stone (08/27/2018) subtitled “a mapping of futility” is a striking example of Gordon’s ability to weave abstract narratives from data sets. Computer ASCII-to-decimal values of the letters of the title translated into a folding pattern provide the armature for a network of tensile white bands that bulge as they span the drawing’s red surface. This matrix is repeated, with a slight shift in coordinates, multiplying the complexity of the design and alluding to the Greek myth of a king condemned to roll a heavy stone up a hill only to have it roll back again.

Gordon states she “likes to know where North is.” As she prepared a new body of work for SHIFT HAPPENS “frustration at finding trustworthy and complete data at this time” led her to focus on questions of language. The term “essential worker” is the subject of several works in SHIFT HAPPENS, including a tape installation on the gallery’s central columns that will be completed over the course of the exhibition. In the oil painting Essential Worker (01/15/21), Gordon builds luminosity through nineteen applications of transparent color. Angular “folds” are reiterated in incised lines in the canvas and in radiating parallel lines in gold. The meticulously honed abstract field of this work invites continued meditation on how value is assigned to people and labor.

The theme of misinformation or “happy talk” that “re-frames information in bright, sparkling packages” is raised by Gordon in several works in SHIFT HAPPENS. The retina-waking fluorescent hue of the large oil painting Happy Talk (06/01/2020) appears to seep beyond the edges of the canvas, an optical effect evoking non-stop broadcasts of questionable truths. Gordon’s “Mentiri” drawings on graph paper, some of the most personal works in the exhibition, contrast texts from different

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sources plotted in binary code, treating fact and fiction equally. Depictions of objects illustrating texts or titles in enlarged font demand examination. In proximity to the drawings, a video of clouds ascending shot by the artist on Inauguration Day hints at renewal and movement out of the shadow of the pandemic.

Major shifts in the socio-political landscape are chronicled by Gordon in environmental tape installations produced for SHIFT HAPPENS. Following the window installation One Love Response (2020) Gordon designed No Justice No Peace (2021) for GreenHill’s 96-foot-long back wall. It is based on the numerical values for the phrase first coined by Martin Luther King Jr., and like the earlier work is a reflection on the Black Lives Matter movement. The deployment of alternating purple and black segments in parallel taped lines with a slight overlap where folds and colors meet articulates the “mountains and valleys” pattern of origami mapping on a monumental scale. The mural’s activation of surrounding space through line and color suggests the winding movement of crowds in motion.

Gordon’s engagement with the issues of her time separates her practice from the neutral position of pioneers of conceptual art such as Sol LeWitt and Mel Bochner. Yet like these artists, Gordon’s formulations propose new avenues of connection between quantified and perceived experience. She notes that for her “each map is evidence of learning something, discarding something, shifting . . . .”, and her works extend multiple invitations for the viewer to join in.

Edie Carpenter Director, Artistic and Curatorial Programs

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Heather Gordon

Torpor, 2019 colored pencil on Yupo, 60 x 60 inches GO000092 $5,250

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Heather Gordon

Essential Worker, 2020 colored pencil on Yupo, 24 x 24 inches GO000082 $1,315

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Heather Gordon

Structure for a Sisphus Stone, 2018 colored pencil on Yupo, 60 x 60 inches GO000091 $5,250

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Heather Gordon

Unprecedented, 2020 graphite on Yupo, 24 x 24 inches GO000084 $1,315

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Heather Gordon

Toxic, 2020 colored pencil on Yupo, 24 x 24 inches GO000085 $1,315

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Heather Gordon

Happy Talk, 2020 oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches GO000081 $8,400

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Heather Gordon

Light Through the Trees, 2019 oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches GO000096 $8,820

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Heather Gordon

Echo Facing Inward, 2018 acrylic and colored pencil on canvas, 55 x 49.5 inches GO000095 $6,615

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Heather Gordon

It Happened Sometime Between the Flowering of the Lotus and the Water Lily, 2019 oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches GO000093 $3,675

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Heather Gordon

Happy Talk, 2020 colored pencil on Yupo, 24 x 24 inches GO000082 $1,315

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Heather Gordon

Essential Worker, 2021 oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches GO000090 $8,400

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Heather Gordon

Echo Outward Facing, 2018 acrylic and colored pencil on canvas, 52 x 52 inches GO000089 Private Collection

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Heather Gordon

Essential Worker, 2021 oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches GO000088 $5,250

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Heather Gordon

Signal from Ganymede, 2019 oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches GO000094 $5,250

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Heather Gordon

UNLESS, 2020 oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches GO000086 $6,300

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Heather Gordon

Happy Talk, 2020 oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches GO000087 $5,250

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Heather Gordon

Protest, 2021 oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches GO000080 $8,400

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Heather Gordon

Mentiri, 2020 ink and pencil on graph paper, 22 x 30 inches GO000076 $945

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Heather Gordon

It Is What It Is, 2020 ink on paper, 22 x 30 inches GO000078 $945

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Heather Gordon

Bush League, 2021 ink on paper, 22 x 30 inches GO000077 $945

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Heather Gordon

Sunshine Enema, 2020 ink and pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches GO000079 $945

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Heather Gordon

My Whole Soul is in this 01/20/21 looping MP4 video

The artist’s continual view of the sky on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021.

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Heather Gordon

No Justice No Peace, 2021 site-specific installation, 96 feet

No Justice No Peace Digital Mock-up

No Justice No Peace Design View

No Justice No Peace Crease Pattern, February 2021 Mountain and Valley Folds

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Heather Gordon

Drawing of Column Design for Essential Workers 02/13/21 ongoing site-specific installation

Artist Note: “The pattern rotates around each column. Pattern rotates across the faces of the four columns to be taped. The full pattern becomes visible across the front view, as well as various angles. In my mind anyway.”

“To be completed in 1.5 inch gold tape , semi translucent.”

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Heather Gordon

The Handshake Project 03/12/2021 - Ongoing

The Handshake Project invites people to submit video clips of themselves engaged in a handshake with members of their household. Evolving video compilations will capture a community of handshake responses.

A Handshake is an agreement.

A Handshake is both a greeting and a farewell.

A Handshake is weapons free.

What does a Handshake mean to you?

Participants are encouraged to ask GreenHill staff for assistance utilizing The Handshake Project photo booth to record their handshake video, or email a video file link directly to Heather Gordon, heatgord@fastmail.com.

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Heather Gordon How Do You Feel?

03/12/2021 - Ongoing

Over the course of the exhibition, viewers are invited to reply to the question, “How Do You Feel?” in 140 characters or less via Twitter @greenhillnc using the hashtag #howdoyoufeel or in person at GreenHill.

Heather Gordon will create tape installations for eight responses.

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How Do You Feel?

Amanda Starling Gould Durham, NC “I feel happy seeing you at work today, Heather.”

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Photo Credit: Phillip Marsh, One Love, aerial view, 2020

Heather Gordon

One Love Response, 2020 window mural installation 94.5 x 116.25 inches 1 inch red exterior grade vinyl tape Inspired by the “One Love” street mural created by Phillip Marsh on Greensboro’s North Davie Street, Heather Gordon constructed a site-specific mural on the large exterior window of the GreenHill gallery. It was the first of Gordon’s works presented to explore art engagement at a time of social distancing.

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Heather Gordon, 2019, photo curtesy of Eli Gray

Born in 1967, Heather Gordon is the daughter of an accountant and logistics specialist. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Florida in 1990 and her M.F.A from New Mexico State University in 1995. She lives and works in Knightdale, NC. Her recent installation work titled “Cinnabar” was included in the exhibition “You Are Here: Light, Color and Sound Experiences” at the North Carolina Museum of Art. In addition, collaborative projects with choreographer Justin Tornow include “Penumbra” as part of Gordon’s exhibitions at CAM Raleigh titled “And Then the Sun Swallowed Me”, “Echo” at 21C, and “SHOW” at The Durham Fruit. In 2014, Gordon received a North Carolina Artist Fellowship.

She has been a full-time artist since 2015.

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Catalog Cover: Heather Gordon, No Justice No Peace, 2021 Credit Page: Heather Gordon, It Happened Sometime Between the Flowering of the Lotus and the Water Lily, 2019 Contents Page: Heather Gordon, Happy Talk, 2020 Welcome Page: Heather Gordon, American Sign Language, video still, 2020 Works on View: Heather Gordon, Happy Talk, 2020 Back Cover: Heather Gordon, No Justice No Peace, 2021

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ABOUT GREENHILL CENTER FOR NORTH CAROLINA ART GreenHill engages a broad community of artists, adults and children through dynamic statewide exhibitions and educational programs while providing a platform for exploration and investment in art. As a gateway to North Carolina’s creative community, GreenHill is the only organization dedicated exclusively to presenting and promoting the contemporary visual art and artists of NC. Inspired by a vision of cultural equity and inclusion, GreenHill’s wide-ranging initiatives build empathy and connection through expressive, innovative and thought-provoking art. For more information on programming and to see GreenHill’s Telly Award winning film, visit www.GreenHillNC.org.