Heather Renée Russ (she/they) works across photography, projection, installation and bio-art. They blend organic marine materials with queer femme signifiers, like wig hair and false eyelashes. Their work engages with themes of displacement while celebrating the vibrant communities queers have historically created in cities by the sea. Heather Renée currently works with marine algae, both macroalgae (seaweed) and microalgae (phytoplankton). They build live algae bioreactors in femme signifying vessels that take in carbon and produce oxygen. They also utilize scanner photography to create detailed imagery of algae, incorporating glitch. Russ’s work is influenced by queer ecology and speaks to the fragmentation many queers feel as spaces of gathering, including queer beaches, are under threat from climate change and gentrification. Russ draws from a rich history of stewarding underground art spaces. She co-produced Club Feral, a raucous queer nightclub in San Francisco and the collaborative space in Brooklyn known as Lair Fera.

Heather Renée Russ will be showing at NADA Miami with Paradice Palase during 2023 Miami Art Week. She participated in SPRING/BREAK Art Show in NYC during 2023 Armory Week as both an artist and a curator. She has also shown at SomoS in Berlin, IMT Gallery in London and Satellite Art Fair in Miami. In New York, she has shown at Flux Factory, ChaShaMa, Ethan Cohen’s Kube and also with Paradice Palase at the Other Art Fair. She has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center, ChaShaMa North, TransBorder Art on Governors Island and at MASS MoCA where she also returned as an alumni resident.

Heather Renée Russ lives and works in New York.

Studio shot of Heather Renée Russ at MASS MoCA residency 2022