Heather Chontos was born in New York in  1978. The daughter of a carpenter and antique collector, her fascination with the value and meaning imbued into objects started from a very early age. The value of working with one’s hands, enabling her to deepen her relationship with the physical world, whether by restoration or construction. These early influences ultimately became a major driving force behind her academic and professional focus, studying art conservation and gaining experience in illustration, set design, prop making and product styling. 

The past and present play a vital role in Chontos’ work, holding equal significance as she creates. Moreover, her entire artistic approach is holistic, driven by the motivation to reflect her personal experience both internally and of the world around her. Working from an almost automatic or intuitive impulse, she builds upon each foundational stroke of paint without precognition, entwining each medium until they have come together to display an abstracted yet diaristic snapshot of the artist’s life. These collage-like arrangements are rich in texture, depth, and tone due to Chontos’ use of unconventional painting techniques and varied choice of materials. Bright groupings of paint form, organic lines and shapes that intermingle and overlap. Each layer and color coalesce in relation not only to each other, but collectively come together in a dance of asymmetrical harmony. 

Among her many influences, Chontos cites her often-changing natural surroundings as a major source for her work and a vital source for her process. All things in the biological world are perpetually suspended between the arbitrary and the uniform. Much like in Chontos’ work, the seemingly random shapes contain formations of precognitive balance and consonance within it. With this framework in mind, the process of abstraction becomes a key factor in her work. Each bold shape on the canvas invites the viewer to investigate the composition more deeply, finding their own emotional and narrative connections as they survey. 

Heather Chontos’ work serves as an allegory for her life, each one is a composite of the parts, depicting the chaos and balance that she and everyone else navigate each day, year, and lifetime. Her unflinching use of personal experience and perspective creates art that is so vulnerable and compelling, it necessitates concerted gazing and reciprocating self-exploration.   

As an artist, Chontos' work has taken her all over the world, from her first solo show in the UK, to Barcelona, Copenhagen, Berlin, Italy, New York and Los Angeles, where she was the artist-in-residence at Palazzo Monti. Most recently, her journey has taken her to Dordogne, France where she currently lives and works. 

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