I began as a passive and analytical artist, influenced mostly by calligraphy (1979-89). My experience with Zen brush painting and psychotherapy (emotional release techniques and inner child play (1989-91)) catapulted my passive work into my energetic and spontaneous style of Action Painting. It is the marriage of these modalities that fuel my technique of painting.

Action (gestural movements, emotional and vocal releases) enables me to step out of my intellect and tap into my subconscious. This results in work that embodies the physical act of painting itself, which is meant to touch the viewer on a visceral level. I present my work as an invitation for the viewer to detach, gaze and perhaps experience an interlude of emotions; it is this sense of primitive, visual language that offers a moment for intellectual repose.

An important element about the way I create is the open walled studio. I work outside without air conditioning or heat, my canvasses on the ground. The sultry, Florida climate participates as a muse, stoking the embers of my internal, primitive fire for what I interpret as preparation for "the calling" or the intuitive pull to the studio, to catch the passion of a moment - and to release. Other aspects of my work that are intuitively driven include hand mixing colors, striking minimalist one/two brush strokes and applying multiple layers of color over extended periods of time. High polymer acrylics and/or Sumi ink are hand mixed on the pole barn studio floor. I use oversized brushes and large mops to push/pull acrylic and sumi ink across unstretched canvas and/or metal panels.

Current day 2011, my painting/release process is to this day as twenty years ago, euphoric. I call it a state of spiritual reverie...independent of thought and analysis that is without a doubt, energized with curiosity and wonder of my internal 4 year old. As bodies of work maneuver between bold strokes of abstract forms and minimalist Zen brushwork, my work remains true to expressing raw emotion, primal sensuality and spontaneous creativity.

– Brenda Heim, 2011