The Miami Art Blog by Heike Dempster

I am really interested in typography. I often use words. I am really interested in words. How they look but also the meaning behind them. Recently I have been reading a lot of books and I read this book called “Eden,” which references a lot C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. The guy who wrote “The Hobbit.” They talk a lot about mythology. They were very interested in mythology. That’s why they were writing these books. They had this idea that myths are echoes of reality. They were talking about this concept of there being echoes of paradise in the world now, so, when you see a beautiful sunset, it is an echo of paradise. When you listen to the story of Cinderella and all ends with happily ever after it is a bit unrealistic in this world but it is actually an echo of a better world. I just find that really exciting. I do believe there are echoes of paradise all around us. It is kind of an encouragement. It is saying “I Remember Paradise.” there is a paradise. It might be a bit messed up in this world but there is something better. That’s what it is trying to say. It is just me really saying what is in my heart. The beautiful colors are reflecting paradise. I think every beautiful thing here is a reflection of that better place.

No.

It’s amazing. The guys here, like all of the people who we have been working with, the team we have been working with, all the other artists, are so amazing and it is so inspiring what they are doing out here. Just such a collaborative vibe. Really about community and very open. Lots of sharing. They have been so welcoming. Really, really nice and so healthy in their creativity. I feel like you really need those things. Creativity rather than closed-ness. That kind of edge you sometimes find, I found it to be the exact opposite here. It has really been inspiring. I am just so amazed to be part of it, really.

It’s funny cause I studied graphic design and illustration in London. I graduated in 2009. It was a weird course because it really pushed the idea of what illustration is, outside of children’s books and traditional stuff. I ended up coming out of that doing lots of different stuff, just kind of applying my aesthetic. I did a lot of commercial work but also my own work. I was really into painting large scale rather than doing small things. I ended up making a lot of large scale work. I like this sense of the epic. Monumental things that really shout louder than something that’s closed in a book. I have never done a wall this big. This is like a giant leap from what I have done before in terms of scale. I am really happy and I am loving it.

I have a friend who has got a gallery in LA. She comes to London, to art fairs like Frieze and this contemporary African art fair that is very interesting. She came two months ago for Frieze and when she comes we always chat about my work and what I am doing. We just kind of share interests and inspiration. I showed her around my studio and she is friendly with Jeffrey Deitch, who curated this project here in Wynwood. She told him about me and, basically, he liked my work and I got to do it.

I do, yes. I don’t exhibit as much as I would want to because you have to pay the bills so I have done a lot of commercial stuff but I do exhibit. When did I last exhibit? In Shoreditch this summer at Hoxton Gallery. Right now I am just kind of going from thing to thing. I am trying to get some funding from the Arts Council for a project all about African and Caribbean hairstyles. My husband is a barber. We have decided on this collaboration, which we call “Bros with ‘Fros,” which is a t-shirt collection at the moment. For the moment it is just a commercial thing but I really want to explore it deeper and really get underneath the whole history and culture of the hairstyling. I just find it really interesting. I have done research into European ethnographic research. Back in the day they would do all this research and measure people’s heads and they would take samples of people bodies to label people. I was really interested in the idea of reversing that. Often they took hair samples because hair was an easy thing to package up and send off. Hair, often, in many cultures, has a kind of mystic quality and a magical quality so it is a really weird thing. They were actually stealing bits of people and then taking it home and then saying “this means this and this and this” and labeling it. I was quite interested in the idea of reversing that and re-labeling African Caribbean hair. I am just celebrating it for all the beauty and the craft and the skill involved in the hairstyling. Hopefully in the beginning of the new year that will all have produced a body of work.