The metamorphoses of substance: the first monograph on Jay Heikes’ alchemical transmutations of matter, from gelatin to horse hair

The first major catalog on Minneapolis-based artist Jay Heikes (born 1975), this book surveys 20 years of an expansive oeuvre that includes sculpture, painting and installation. His heterogeneous practice mixes and reinterprets a kaleidoscopic array of media, activating stories, puns and irony in a cyclical meditation. Heikes’ sculptures look at once like they emerged from the earth and dropped from the sky: branching metal limbs that twist along the floor, wax- and horsehair-wrapped twigs, silver gelatin mounds, scattered orbs of indeterminate composition and slag-coated detritus.

Through his use of unexpected pairings of materials, his artistic approach reveals the precarious relationships that characterize the infinite matter of the universe. The son of a chemist and educator, he is particularly fascinated by the alchemy inherent in the never-ending transformation of one substance into another, revealing the histories and processes sometimes hidden below the surface of our natural and unnatural worlds.