Heather Renée Russ

Heather Renée Russ (she/they) works across photography, installation and bio art. Her multidisciplinary practice incorporates queer femme signifiers and organic materials to explore queer ecologies, climate grief and the cumulative effects of stress on queer bodies. Russ comes from a rich history of organizing in underground art scenes. She co-directed Lair Fera, a queer collaborative space in Brooklyn. In San Francisco she co-produced Club Feral, a raucous mutual aid queer nightclub. Stewarding spaces for queer artists in ever-shifting environments directly informs her work.

Russ has an upcoming solo exhibition at the NARS Foundation in New York City and is currently featured in Unfixxxed at Elijah Wheat Showroom and Solastalgia at Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach. She recently presented a solo exhibition at State University of New York (SUNY) Old Westbury. Her work has also been shown with Field Projects (NYC), SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NYC), NADA Miami with Paradice Palase, IMT Gallery (London), SoMos (Berlin), Underdonk (NYC) and Satellite Art Fair (Miami).

Russ has participated in residencies at NARS Foundation, MASS MoCA, Wassaic Project, ChaNorth and Vermont Studio Center. She holds an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from School of Visual Arts and a BA in Women and Gender Studies from San Francisco State University. Russ is currently at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) Studio Program, where she has her studio in New York City.

CV