Presented in collaboration with the LSU School of Art and the LSU Museum of Art, When the Water Rises: Recent Paintings by Julie Heffernan, will be on display at the LSU Museum of Art, March 11–September 17, 2017. A reception featuring a gallery talk by the artist will be held 6–8 p.m. at the LSU Museum of Art on Thursday, March 16, 2017.

Using the power of paint’s materiality and immediacy, Julie Heffernan brings form to the reality of our environmental and sociopolitical problems. Her works imagine alternatives to our present dilemmas, like tiny worlds inside the knothole of a tree, full rooms with events going on inside that describe aspects of the human condition: circumstances of failure, feckless action, violence, love, and redemption. The paintings in this exhibition present new possibilities, distinctly different environments in which to live, breathe, work, and travel far. This exhibit will debut with nine new works.