SUE HEATLEY
Contour and Convergence
September 11 – October 30, 2026
RICHMOND, VA – Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce Contour and Convergence, an exhibition of new work from Richmond-based artist Sue Heatley. Featuring ceramic sculpture alongside works on paper, the exhibition brings together two complementary bodies of work that explore contour, composition, and abstraction. Through an intuitive, material-driven practice, Heatley creates works that explore the
relationships between shape, form, and the physical presence of the body.
Building upon ideas first explored in Soft Landings, Heatley’s recent exhibition in New York, Contour and Convergence marks the next stage in her evolving practice. The exhibition expands her investigation of how ideas translate into materials, demonstrating how her work in clay and on paper continually influences one another while continuing her formal experimentation and process.
Heatley’s practice doesn’t begin with a predetermined image but with the material itself. “I start with a fascination of material,” she says. Whether working with clay or paper, each piece develops through an open-ended process of experimentation, revision, and discovery. Layers are built, removed, and reworked until the composition turns into something that feels right. As Heatley describes it, “I start out and make a real mess until I find where I want it to go.” Her willingness to welcome uncertainty allows each work to evolve organically, revealing unexpected relationships between surface, color, and form.
Flume, 2026, Acrylic and ink on paper, 15 x 12 1/8 inches
Though abstract, Heatley’s compositions maintain a strong physical presence. Working consistently at the scale of the human torso, she creates objects and images that invite viewers into a bodily experience of space. Contour functions as both a structural element and a conceptual thread throughout the exhibition, linking the sculptural aspect of clay with the layered and shifting planes of paper.
Color is equally fundamental to Heatley’s practice. Palette serves as an organizing principle from the earliest stages of each work, establishing the visual framework for each piece. As compositions evolve through Heatley’s continual revision, color remains the constant thread that unifies the work while allowing intuition to shape its final form. Underlying the exhibition is an interest in interconnectedness – between mediums, ideas, and ways of thinking. Heatley often finds inspiration beyond the art world, drawing from conversations and experiences with people different from herself. This receptiveness to exchange is reflected throughout Contour and Convergence, where ceramics and works on paper speak to one another through common forms.
While Heatley’s work is grounded in formal abstraction, it remains deeply intuitive. Titles are assigned mainly after the work is complete and photographed, marking the moment it leaves the studio rather than defining its meaning. Completion of a piece is determined through her experience rather than a formula; each piece reaches a point at which its relationships of color, shape, and composition combine into a whole. For Heatley, the studio remains a place of ongoing discovery, where making is as much about learning as it is about arriving at a finished object.
In Contour and Convergence, Heatley presents an exhibition in which sculpture and works on paper exist as extensions of one another. Through contour, color, and material, the works reveal an exploration of abstraction that is both formal and intuitive, welcoming viewers to consider the subtle relationships that connect bodies, objects, and space.
Bloom Box, 2026, Acrylic and ink on paper, 22 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches
About the Artist
Having returned to Richmond after several years living in New York, Sue Heatley combines printmaking and painting techniques to express abstraction rooted in mark-making. Over her thirty-year studio practice, she has created collage-like compositions through applications of myriad materials, including acrylic paint, quick-drying pigments and ink, on varied backgrounds like textured linen and thick rag paper.
Heatley received her BA in Art History from Hiram College in Ohio and later studied printmaking at the Richmond Printmaking Workshop in Virginia. She has exhibited at The Drawing Room, (East Hampton, NY); Site (Brooklyn, NY); the International Print Center and Turn Gallery (both New York, NY); 1708 Gallery, Quirk Gallery and The Visual Arts Center (all Richmond, Virginia). Her work is represented in numerous public and corporate collections, including the United States Department of State, Washington, DC; Esteé Lauder Companies (New York, NY); Special Collections and Archives of Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia, Hunton & Williams and Owens & Minor (all Richmond, VA).
