Cecily Herzig graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Studio Art and a second degree in Environmental Studies.  Since her undergraduate days, she has avoided labels and endeavored to evolve ever forward with her work.  To maintain a fresh perspective she has worked in a diverse range of mediums including prints, watercolors, oils and felt.  She began exhibiting with a series Crayon Creature drawings and oil paintings. Over the last several years the crayon pieces have been a collaboration with her young son & his peers. From those scribbles she creates lively and fanciful characters perched on the edge of mischievous doings. The end result being a richly colored cinematic like image.

Regardless of medium, Herzig seeks the decisive moment.   In Herzig’s recent watercolors, the decisive moment is present in the pensive, often cryptic phrases and odd bits of text placed very deliberately throughout her marvelously playful works.  One is overtaken with the impression that these words have real meaning at real moments in her life experience. By pairing the carefully rendered creatures with the interspersed phrases the viewer is provided with a license to create the moment for themselves. Thereby, producing a challenging truthfulness that is rarely seen outside of representational or even photorealistic styles.

“While creating and looking at art I am fascinated by the little moments: the 1” square filled with an intricate interplay of color, the periwinkle smudged with white melting into orange, the approach of yellow in the middle of the night, the sudden jag or subtle curve of a line…overheard conversations, bits of text… All those vignettes of sight & sound adding up to present something unexpected."

Cecily Herzig’s work currently hangs in the headquarters of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in New York City and has been sold in fundraisers by the Human Rights Campaign.  Her work hangs in many private collections throughout the United States including New England, New York and Monterey California.

Visit her website for more images.
To see what’s available to purchase visit her Etsy Store.