Heikes, Jay

American, b. 1975

BiographyFor his Civilians photographs, Jay Heikes conjured up human-like forms from pile of sticks, a bee’s nest, an old shirt, and other detritus, as if to hint at a kind of inanimate life in the most elementary kinds of matter. Making large palladium prints is itself a highly material process, which involves mixing chemicals and coating the paper by hand, before toning each print one by one.

Heikes’ work was included in the Museum of Contemporary Photography exhibition, Phantoms of the Dirt, in 2014. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, among others.