Untitled design - 2026-04-04T132150.614.png
Untitled design - 2026-04-04T132150.614.png

Heather McAteer, ‘Almost at once the heart too heavy (Belfast landscape)’

£470.00

2025
Graphite on gessoed book endpaper
14 x 23 cm (unframed)

Artist Statement
“I am a drawing artist who works primarily with graphite to explore themes of loss, trauma and the persistence of memory. My recent work engages with imagery of seas, tides and shifting shorelines as metaphors for instability, remembrance and renewal. Drawing directly on the pages and covers of old books, I layer new imagery over traces of existing text and illustration, creating surfaces where histories overlap and time seems to drift.

Water serves as both subject and symbol: fluid, reflective and unpredictable. The sea becomes a drifting expanse of remembering and forgetting, echoing the psychological and political undercurrents of my Northern Irish childhood during the Troubles. It has become a recurring motif suggesting migration, distance and emotional undercurrents tied to exile and return.

Using a restrained palette and the tonal depth of graphite, I build atmospheric spaces that hover between beauty and menace. Through blending, erasing and layering, I evoke images that emerge and dissolve like reflections disturbed by movement. The intimacy of scale draws viewers into quiet yet unsettled worlds that feel simultaneously familiar and estranged.

These drawings, which fuse inherited fragments with personal mythology, imagine the sea as a threshold where boundaries dissolve and transformation becomes possible. In this space of uncertainty and fluidity, the act of drawing becomes a means of navigating loss and seeking renewal.” - Heather McAteer, 2026

2025
Graphite on gessoed book endpaper
14 x 23 cm (unframed)

Artist Statement
“I am a drawing artist who works primarily with graphite to explore themes of loss, trauma and the persistence of memory. My recent work engages with imagery of seas, tides and shifting shorelines as metaphors for instability, remembrance and renewal. Drawing directly on the pages and covers of old books, I layer new imagery over traces of existing text and illustration, creating surfaces where histories overlap and time seems to drift.

Water serves as both subject and symbol: fluid, reflective and unpredictable. The sea becomes a drifting expanse of remembering and forgetting, echoing the psychological and political undercurrents of my Northern Irish childhood during the Troubles. It has become a recurring motif suggesting migration, distance and emotional undercurrents tied to exile and return.

Using a restrained palette and the tonal depth of graphite, I build atmospheric spaces that hover between beauty and menace. Through blending, erasing and layering, I evoke images that emerge and dissolve like reflections disturbed by movement. The intimacy of scale draws viewers into quiet yet unsettled worlds that feel simultaneously familiar and estranged.

These drawings, which fuse inherited fragments with personal mythology, imagine the sea as a threshold where boundaries dissolve and transformation becomes possible. In this space of uncertainty and fluidity, the act of drawing becomes a means of navigating loss and seeking renewal.” - Heather McAteer, 2026

Artist Biography

Originally from Belfast, Heather McAteer (b.1968) specialises in graphite drawings which explore themes of loss, trauma and personal and collective memory reflecting on her formative years in Northern Ireland. She studied Fine Art at The University of Ulster (BA) and The University of Reading (MFA) where she graduated with a distinction.

Her work is exhibited nationally and internationally with solo exhibitions at West Berkshire Museum, Newbury (2025) and Open Hand Open Space, Reading (2019 & 2021) and a two-person exhibition at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart, Northern Ireland (2023).  Selected group exhibitions include, mostly recently, ‘Winter Group Show ’at Linden Hall Studios, Deal (2023, 2024 & 2025), ‘RBSA Drawing Prize Exhibition’ at RBSA Gallery, Birmingham (2023 & 2025), ‘Biennial Open’ & ‘172nd Annual Open Exhibition’, at  RWA, Bristol (2025), ‘Shadow/Sombre’ atForum Grandela, Lisbon (2025), '100/50' at Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London (2025), ‘Guildford House Open’ at Guildford House Gallery (2025), ’Irving Gallery Open 2026’ at Irving Gallery, Oxford, and ‘Works on Paper' at The Gallery at Green & Stone, London (2026).

 Heather has been selected for numerous awards, commissions and residencies. She was shortlisted for ‘The Derwent Art Prize 2026’ and is the recipient of 'The Damian Greenish Drawing Award' at the 7th Summer Exhibition at The Gallery at Green & Stone, London (2025). In 2020 she was awarded  ‘The Drawing Prize’ at the 139th Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition, Ulster Museum, Belfast and selected for a Jelly (ACE/ National Lottery/DCMS funded) ‘At Home’ Artist Residency. In 2021 she was commissioned by the Museum of English Rural Life to make work for their ’51 Voices’ (ACE funded) Project. The first book of her work, ‘Forests of Dreamland’, was published in June 2024.