Heidi Yardley was born in 1975 and currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at Monash University in 1995 and Honours in Drawing at RMIT in 1999. Heidi is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries in Melbourne and Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane. In 2008 she was included in the major exhibition ‘Neo Goth: Back in Black’ at the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane where six of her paintings were acquired for the collection. Past solo exhibitions include ‘Darklands’, Stephanie Burns Fine Art, Canberra (2007), ‘Urban Myth’, Goya Galleries, Melbourne (2001), ‘Tethered’, 69 Smith Street Gallery, Collingwood (1999). Heidi has taken part in numerous group exhibitions including ‘Exploration 7’, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, ‘The Land of Milk and Honey - Emerging Victorian Artists’, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide (2001), ‘A Charcoal Sea’, Goya Galleries, Melbourne (1999 & 2001), ‘Invention’, Switchback Gallery, Monash University, Gippsland, (2000) ‘Silent Fall’, Linden Gallery, St Kilda (1998). She has been a finalist in the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship on three occasions. From 1996 to 2000 Heidi was an artist in residence and committee member at Roar Studios in Fitzroy, an artist collective founded in 1982. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the BHP Billiton Collection, The Art Gallery of Ballarat and the University of Queensland Art Museum.
Heidi Yardley transforms found and self-created images into paintings of familiar yet complicated scenes and portraits. The paintings often play on nostalgia, memory and personal and cultural histories, exploring emotions such as desire and loss. The works become removed from any specific time or place but rely on the dialogue between each work to create meaning, requiring the viewer’s personal recognition. Associations and contradictions are at play creating the sense of a memory difficult to recall or the fragmented stills of a film. Recent work has explored the subject of the Supernatural including the Occult, magic and ritual. Other works explore nostalgia and domesticity, particularly referencing the 1970’s and 80’s, as well as the ephemeral nature of youth and rebellion.
Heidi Yardley 2009 exhibitions:
NEW:Selected Recent Acquisitions, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane, November 28 2008 - February 1 2009
Black Mirror, Gallery 2, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney. April 2 - 25, 2009
Solo exhibition, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne October 2009
