Heather Gallegos-Rex

Heather Gallegos-Rex’s Artist Statement

I choose hand-woven tapestry to do art because tapestry, with its inherent tactile sensuousness and its implication of timelessness, simultaneously engages most of the senses and the intellect.  For hundreds of years, tapestries have been drawing in, enveloping, and fascinating viewers as few other mediums can.  I want to be part of that history.

My inspiration comes from the geometry and rhythms of the natural world, architectural references, and other artists, especially 20th-century expressionist and abstract painters.  Color is paramount in my work, with its myriad contrasts and implied emotions.  I hand-dye all my wool and silk and frequently use dozens of colors and color gradations in a single piece in order to create an exact nuance or blend.  I revel in and feel awed by the constructive, additive process of weaving.  Watching the line by line, color by color, almost magical transformation of an idea into an image — a contemporary tapestry — is thrilling.  My expressive goal is to excite similar enjoyment for the viewer or owner of my work.

Heather Gallegos-Rex’s Biography

When I was a young artist, I studied with several master artists and weavers, became a professional weaver, won awards, exhibited in and sold from galleries, and did numerous commissions.  The work went to corporate offices, museums, and private collections throughout the country.  Now, after a quarter century of an unexpected, but nonetheless wonderful, career in academia and government, I am deeply grateful to have the time and resources to devote myself fully to the studio, my true home, and to develop further the work that started then.  This time concentrating solely on tapestry.

I am currently a Studio Artist at Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.