.
For inquiries please contact hdrayzen@gmail.com
💌 Join my mailing list for the occasional newsletter and updates!
Recent Press Links
Two Coats of Paint Review by Lucas Moran
Artist Talk with Kate Sherman hosted by JD Raenbeau at My Pet Ram
Interview with Brainard Carey on Yale Radio
Studio Tour and Interview with Sam Blank’s Filling the Blank
Bio
Heather Drayzen (b. 1985, San Antonio, TX) is a painter whose intimate, small-scale works depict quiet domestic scenes, often featuring herself and her loved ones. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Drayzen received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and her MAT from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Her second solo exhibition, Towards the Sun, opened at My Pet Ram, New York, in October 2025, following her debut solo at the gallery. Her work has also been featured in two-person exhibitions at My Pet Ram, The Middle Room Gallery (Los Angeles), and on PLATFORM. Her work has been presented in group exhibitions at Massey Klein Gallery (New York), EDJI Gallery (Brussels), Noon Projects (Los Angeles), Myriam Chair Galerie (Paris), and Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia), among others. Her works on paper were included in Trove, presented by Deanna Evans Projects.
Drayzen was awarded First Prize in the Prisma Art Prize, Rome. She has completed residencies at Hafnarborg, Iceland, and the Vermont Studio Center, and will participate in a residency at Jentel Artist Residency, Wyoming, in July 2026. Her work has been reviewed in Two Coats of Paint and she has been interviewed on Brainard Carey's Yale Radio podcast and the Filling in the Blank series with Sam Blank. Her work is held in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Public Collection.
Statement
In 2019, and again in 2023, I experienced health scares that, along with the 2020 pandemic—created an urgency to document my life, memories, and relationships. My paintings grow from my lived experiences, interior world, and emotions, where tenderness, intimacy, and beauty are tools for survival.
I paint small-scale domestic scenes in oil on linen, often including myself and those I cherish in quiet, reflective moments. These works are shaped by the rhythms of everyday life with my husband and our dogs, and increasingly by the natural world and the way its beauty sustains me emotionally and spiritually. Experiences like sharing a meal, drawing together, or napping with the pups unfold in an atmosphere of iridescent golden light, evoking the passage of time and in dialogue with art historical influences including Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, and Edvard Munch.
Each work is a vignette within a larger ongoing narrative that I imagine as a slow, continuous film or a lifelong poem. Ultimately, my paintings are about what matters most: the devotional call to create, to love, to pay attention, and to look toward the light.
.
