A. Klarke Heinecke 

Artist Statement

I am a painter and digital artist. My work is Magic Realist narrative, dense with metaphor and allusion.

When I first started painting landscapes for my figures, I noticed that other artists use linear perspective. This was not how the world looked to me.

At first I approached the issue intuitively, creating curved landscapes. Then I started doing visual experiments to really understand what I was seeing. It turns out that linear perspective is not just what is taught in art school. It also arises from relying on a camera to produce art.

Art painted from life naturally produces curvilinear perspective. This is due to multiple vanishing points as one looks around a scene. Van Gogh's "The Bedroom" is a great example.

David Hockney in his book "Secret Knowledge," argues that realism since the Renaissance has relied on optical devices. He points out multiple vanishing points as evidence, without questioning the validity of linear perspective itself.

Linear perspective is inaccurate, especially obvious in the near ground. With nonlinear perspective, parallel lines still converge in the distance. However, they curve as they approach the viewer, to be parallel at the viewer's position.

The curved checkerboards in my current work are meant to visually clarify this increasing understanding. I use digital 3D to generate unique templates for each environment.

https://aklarkeheinecke.com/