JACOB HEUSTIS BIO
Jacob Heustis is a painter and multimedia artist based in Louisville, Kentucky, working across painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography. His practice moves between boldly colored representation and sparse, gestural abstraction, using both traditional and unconventional materials to explore ideas of language, culture, and perception. Heustis returns to color and a sense of play as constants, creating work that shifts tones without losing its idiosyncratic voice.
Tracers
What if I set a deliberate limitation on my approach by restricting recognizable or representational imagery?
The result is a record of a moment: traces of movement, fragments, interruptions, and omissions. They exist in a space between appearance and disappearance where intention is incidental and meaning resists form.
--Jacob Heustis, 2026
EDUCATION
2002 BFA, Murray State University, Murray, KY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026 "Tracers" Solo Exhibition, WheelHouse Art, Louisville, KY
“A Limited Time,” A Pop-Up Exhibition, Louisville, KY
2021 “Illuminators,” Moremen Gallery, Louisville, KY
2019 “Beasts Will Be Still There,” Quappi Projects, Louisville
2014 “Analog/ Analogy,” Zephyr Gallery, Louisville, KY
2013 “Debutantes,” Swanson Contemporary, Louisville, KY
2010 Solo Exhibition, Swanson Contemporary, Louisville, KY
2008 “Enough is Enough” (collaboration with Thea Lura), Gallery NuLu, Louisville, KY
2004 Solo Exhibition, Swanson Reed Contemporary, Louisville, KY
2002 Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016 “Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art,” 21C Bentonville, AR
2015 “Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art,” 21C Cincinnati, OH
“Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art,” 21C Durham, NC
2014 “The Sardonic Eye,” Cressman Center for Visual Arts, Louisville, KY
“Second Life,” Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY
2013 “Welcome Neighbors,” Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
“Face Value,” Kentucky School of Art, Louisville, KY
2012 “You Are Here,” Metro Hall, Louisville, KY
“Swanson Contemporary Presents,” Actor’s Theatre, Louisville, KY
2010 “The Death of Painting is Dead,” Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
2009 “KY Jelly,” Swanson Reed Contemporary, Louisville, KY
2007 “Roar Shock,” Swanson Reed Contemporary, Louisville, KY
“Hot Fun,” New Center for Contemporary Art, Louisville, KY
2006 “Saturate”, The Ground Floor Gallery, Louisville, KY
2005 “Swanson Reed Contemporary Presents,” Actors Theatre Gallery, Louisville, KY
“M – Art After Minimalism,” Swanson Reed Contemporary, Louisville, KY
2003 “Yesterday Today Tomorrow (Repeat),” Swanson Reed Contemporary, Louisville, KY
“The Unnaturally Fantastic Ink Extravaganza,” Semantics Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
“The Radix Commision: “Bilden Sie Maschine,” The Southgate House Art Gallery, Newport, KY
“Swanson Reed Contemporary Presents,” Actors Theatre Gallery, Louisville, KY
2002 “Steal the Show,” The Radix Commission, Louisville, KY
“Traveling Exhibition,” The Radix Commission, Louisville, KY
“Drawing Invitational,” The Ice House, Mayfield, KY
“Art Slam,” The Radix Commission, Louisville, KY
ARTIST STATEMENT
I had a drawing professor who said that making art is just trying to understand something. I think that’s true. I also had a sculpture professor who said that art is making a thousand tiny decisions. I’d say that’s also true.
My work comes from an interpretation of my daily experience. Often it’s something that I’ve noticed on my way to work: an image on a sign, the color of a woman’s dress, a memory, a song lyric, or a line from a book. If it grabs my attention, it can spark an idea of how that particular thing might be translated into physical form. It could be a painting, a sculpture, a photograph, or a video. Whatever best communicates the idea visually, I follow it. Some days I go right to it when I get to the studio. Other ideas may sit for a while as a sketch or even just a title. I keep a list of these ideas tacked to the wall. Eventually one of those ideas might be the thing I start with for a piece.
From what I can tell, the job of the artist is to show up to work. Listen, observe, listen some more, make a decision, and then get to it. There’s a lot of mistakes. Other than that, it’s just a daily observation. Allowing room for anything to come in. If it gets me excited and gives me momentum, I just follow that.
The American composer John Cage said, “If you work, it will lead to something. But don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They are different processes. Be happy when you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.”
--Jacob Heustis
10 (or so) Questions with Jacob Heusits
What part of the creative process do you secretly enjoy the most and what part do you avoid until the last minute?
There was another question about daydreaming, and I like this part the best. When I’m just sitting, thinking, and the ideas come. I start taking notes, making some sketches and the work takes shape. Then after that I love laying down the first stroke of paint on a blank canvas. I often want to stop there. As for avoiding, I am a certified professional procrastinator when it comes to phone calls, emails and updating the website.
What’s the most memorable reaction someone has had to your work?
There was a guy leaving the gallery of a drawing installation in which there was no work hanging. Instead, every inch of the walls in the gallery had been completely covered in graphite from floor to ceiling using a pencil. He was passing a friend on the stairs and said “Don’t even waste your time, it’s terrible.” Then he paused and said “No wait, actually….you have to go in there! “
What is one thing you’ve tried and will never do again?
Skydiving. I did a tandem jump. I said I would go if my younger brother ever wanted to. It was a free fall from 13,000 ft to 5,000 ft. I was the last one out of the plane.
When we opened the shoot it was tangled up, and didn’t fully open. The instructor was telling me to prepare to cut from the shoot, free fall again, and then we’d go to the spare. We ended up getting the shoot untangled and landing safely, but that was enough for me.
What’s a mistake that ended up influencing your work in a good way?
It’s more like a mind trick than a mistake, but when I first started painting I stretched two 7 x 7 ft canvases with the intention of covering the surface with a single, solid color of paint, but leaving a small area open just off the center to reveal the underpainting. I made the underpainting thinking it would not be seen except for the small exposed area. When I returned the next day I was pleasantly surprised by what I had done and decided not to cover it up. What I had painted was better than what I had intended.
What’s something you’ve become obsessed with lately?
My refurbished vintage SX-70 Polaroid camera. Benjamin Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Widow’s Bay, and an instrumental band from Los Angeles called SML.
What’s something that consistently restores your energy?
Being on a boat or sitting by the ocean.
What do you think people misunderstand about creative people?
How hard they work. People think…. it’s art, it’s play, it’s extra-curricular. But the artists I know are some of the most disciplined, resilient, hard working people out there.
What kind of objects or images are you instinctively drawn towards?
Children’s drawings. The drawings done by kids before they have a concept of what’s ’good’ or ‘‘accurate’, or what gains approval from others. That’s a hard thing to get back to.
What was the worst job you ever had?
Cleaning cubical walls on the 8th floor of an empty office building, solo. I lasted a full two weeks.
What’s a sound you love?
A boat engine just above neutral, waves crashing on the beach, and some very tasty guitar feedback.
What is a smell that instantly takes you back to a memory?
Irish Spring soap. It takes me back to a camping trip with my Dad on Dale Hollow Lake. I was probably 9 or 10, it was after dark, we had an old Coleman lantern for light, and took a bath in the lake next to the boat. Never felt cleaner.
What’s something you’re learning to trust more?
Myself.
Listen to interviews with Jacob Heustis:
The Jacob Heustis pop up art show launches on Friday with Terry Meiners on News Radio 840 WHAS, April 22, 2026.
LVA's Artebella On The Radio: September 12, 2019, September 12, 2019.
Artist Jacob Heustis etches vapid socialites using diamonds
September 24, 2013
Launched with a fanfare of embossed invitations and calling cards, Jacob Heustis’ “Debutantes” was introduced at Swanson Contemporary earlier this month. The exhibition of new works was created by Heustis through a process of etching mirrors with diamond rings, and it represents both technical innovation for the artist as well as thoughtful continuations of Heustis’ signature interest in exploring popularity and pop culture.
As a child, Heustis visited the former residence hall of Daughters College, a preparatory school for young women in Harrodsburg, Ky. He noticed graffiti on dorm room windows that was carved into the panes of glass by the former residents. He later learned they used their diamond rings. Advancing this genteel method of mark making, Heustis’ pieces are large-scale portraits of notorious American celebutants and socialites he created using an inverted diamond ring as his etching tool.
In selecting which “debs” to depict, Heustis looked for notorious party girls whose ultimate accomplishment was largely the achievement of their celebrity status. Consequently, it is Paris, not Nicky, Hilton’s visage that serves as the anchor image of the exhibition. Likely the most well-known of the women in contemporary culture, Paris, whose autobiography Heustis read in the course of his research, is surrounded by words that are a mix of modest firsthand report and pornographically detailed secondhand accounts by personal acquaintances and paparazzi. Paris serves as the contemporary departure point for interpreting the other heiresses, such as Brenda Frazier and Consuelo Vanderbilt, who were Paris Hilton equivalents in their respective eras.
Surrounding each portrait is a cloud of words lifted from biographical writings, press clippings and historical scholarship about the women, marrying their actual person to the way their persona was received by the public; this is compounded by the fact that in order to observe them, we are made aware of our own voyeurism in the mirror’s reflection. Heustis’ use of non-narrative language is fresh in its resemblance to word-frequency matrixes used by search engines, but its verbiage is decidedly old-fashioned. The artist took pains to use only slang and verbiage from the eras in which the women were in greatest notoriety, preserving the relativity of their depiction in the media and social mores of the day. The language serves as the visual equivalent of gossip and works beautifully as an accompaniment to their portrayal.
Brilliantly depicted in the gallery is the tangled relationship of Casey Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and famous girlfriend of reality TV star Tila Tequila, and former BFF of Paris Hilton. Purportedly originally selected to star with Hilton on “The Simple Life,” she cited turning the role down as “the stupidest mistake in her life,” as her dream was to “become an actress.” Situated across the gallery from Hilton and depicted in less than half the height, the two portraits reflect onto each other, conflating and tangling the women’s words, identities and images.
At a time when wealth is compounding for the richest in our society and many feel increasingly constrained by our economic plight, “Debutantes” serves as a reminder that wealth cannot furnish freedom.
The show is an interesting, tongue-in-cheek look at how celebrity is created and compounded by our interest in beholding, and it makes explicit the idea that our voyeurism is an act of participation in the lives of those we observe.
Jacob Heustis’ ‘Debutantes’
Through Sept. 28
Swanson Contemporary
638 E. Market St. • 589-5466
This article appears in September 24, 2013.
