Robert Chase Heishman

Biography

Robert Chase Heishman is an artist and filmmaker working with images and reality. Robert Chase Heishman makes photographs, videos, and films that approach image-making as both a physical act and an inquiry. His practice is shaped by his family lineage of bricklayers and farmers, collaborations with other artists (stemming from an early collaboration with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company), and a perennial love for photography and film as mediums for existential rumination.

He has exhibited and screened his work nationally and internationally at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (Canada), Sharjah Biennial 14 (UAE), Brooklyn Academy of Music (NY), Andrea Rehder Arte Contemporânea (São Paulo), Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Barbara Wien Gallery (Berlin), Festival d’Automne (Paris; Tunis), Goldmine (Pittsburgh), BWA Wrocław Główny Gallery (Poland), NON STNDRD/National Building Arts Center (St. Louis), Stavanger Kunstmuseum (Norway), and Triskel Arts Centre (Ireland), among others, as well as throughout Chicago at the Cultural Center, LVL3, Roots & Culture, University Club, Co-Prosperity, The Peninsula, DOCUMENT, Lewis Bag, Block Museum of Art, and Chicago Manual Style. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He has collaborated with Merce Cunningham, Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Michael Rakowitz, and Megan Schvaneveldt.

Heishman is a recipient of various awards including the Illinois Arts Council Visual Based Arts Fellowship, Newcity Breakout Artist, and LATITUDE Artist in Residence. Concurrent to his artistic practice, he co-founded Bob., a creative studio in Chicago; curates Landline, a curatorial platform involving an LED sign for text and a phone number for sound dispatches; and co-founded Private Birthday Party, a mid-century queer photographic archive from middle-America. He holds an MFA from Northwestern University’s Art Theory & Practice program and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute’s Photography & New Media and Art History programs.

Selected works

_IMG (#ffffff; Ride on Time), 2025. Archival inkjet prints mounted on panel [New York Times art commission].
Half an hourglass, 2026. Archival inkjet print mounted on panel [New York Times art commission].
_IMG (common bond; 16 May 2026; end of day piece), 2026. Archival inkjet prints, oil pastel, colored pencil, and graphite on wood panel (x32).
Timestamp (Munnar tea trees; Jumana; African tulip tree), 2026. Archival inkjet print, oil pastel, colored pencil and graphite on wood panel.
Timestamp (Madeira; Karsten, Amanda, Sara; Atlantic waves), 2026. Archival inkjet print, oil pastel, colored pencil and graphite on wood panel.
_IMG (loose grid w/ flowers), 2024/2026. Archival inkjet prints mounted on panel.
_IMG (arches; rose; fireplace), 2023/2026. Archival inkjet prints mounted on panel.
Memory Colors (#627a9d Blue sky), 2025. Archival inkjet print and mixed media on wood panel with Braille-inscribed acrylic.
Memory Colors (#576c43 Foliage), 2025. Archival inkjet print and mixed media on wood panel with Braille-inscribed acrylic.
_IMG (foliage #576c43 and blue sky #627a9d for how long?), 2023/2025. Archival inkjet prints mounted on panel.
Point of View (grid; flower; grief; Alex Chitty dahlia shim), 2021/2025. Archival inkjet print mounted on panel with walnut shim.
Então eu fiz o alicerce (Then I laid the floor), 2022–2024. Digital; 4K video; In Portuguese (Brazil) w/ English subtitles.
I’m Good at Love, I’m Good at Hate, It’s in Between I Freeze, 2016–2024. Digital; HD video [Collaboration with Michael Rakowitz].
Point of View (Sonali Bag; Amazon Shihuahuaco; Maraguá), 2023. Archival inkjet prints on sunburned railroad board behind museum glass.
_IMG (Michael Rakowitz; Princess Leia, Ziyad Iraqi Date syrup), 2023. Archival inkjet prints mounted on panel.
F O : R Y : O U : R C : O N : V E : N I : E N : C E, 2014. Autobiographical critical essay.
Long Fuse, 2012–2013. Digital; HD video.
ibid., 2011. Digital; HD video; QR code [collaboration w/ Megan Schvaneveldt].
_IMG (drawing; Dad’s shim; Sarıkız; Albany Park native flowers; stopwatch; moon phases), 2026. Archival inkjet prints, cold-mounted to cradled birch panels (x110), laid in common bond brick pattern.
Memory Colors: Blue Flower (#8580b1), 2026. Archival inkjet print with braille-embossed ¼ in non-glare plexiglas, stainless clip mounts.

Recent exhibitions and screenings

2026 — Pinhole • ǝloɥuᴉԀ, LATITUDE (Chicago)
2026 — Common Bond, 4th Ward Project Space (Chicago) (solo)
2026 — Walking with Art / Walking with Trees, Inner Freedom Farm (Buchanan, Michigan)
2026 — B-Roll, Dock 6 (Chicago)
2026 — Phantom Frame, NON STNDRD + National Building Arts Center (Sauget, Illinois)
2026 — Carrier, Co-Prosperity (Chicago)
2025 — NEPO, Lewis Bag in collaboration with John Schmid/Ackerman Clarke (Chicago)
2024 — I’m Good at Love, I’m Good at Hate, It’s in Between I Freeze, Festival d’Automne (Paris)
2024 — NewCity Breakout Artist Exhibition, Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago)
2024 — The House That Valdemar Built, Andrea Rehder Arte Contemporânea (São Paulo)
2023 — Then I laid the floor, Triskel Arts Centre (Cork, Ireland)
2023 — foliage (#576c43) and blue sky (#627a9d) for how long?, University Club of Chicago (Chicago) (solo)
2023 — 10 Desirous Adjustments, Switch-Hook projects at the American Back Center (Chicago)
2023 — (Silence. By now, everything is different), Apparatus Projects (Chicago)

Selected press

Daniela Lamas, “When Your Terminal Cancer Becomes a Chronic Illness,” The New York Times, 10 May 2026.
Erin Toale, “Love lives here,” Chicago Reader, 21 October 2025.
Eric Topol, “Longevity and Aging,” The New York Times, 21 April 2025.
Erin Toale, “‘Not just video guys’,” Chicago Reader, 25 January 2025.
Annette LePique, “Breakout Artists 2024: Chicago’s Next Generation of Image Makers,” Newcity, 2 April 2024.
Curtis Anthony Bozif, “Nature of Images: A Review of Robert Chase Heishman’s “foliage (#576c43) and blue sky (#627a9d) for how long?” at the University Club of Chicago,” Newcity Art, 17 July 2023.
Evrim Altuğ, “Şimdi: Tarihi sanatla güncellemenin vakti,” Art Unlimited, no. 67, January–February 2022. Photographs and cover.
Evan Carter, “Scratching the Surface of Globally Outsourced Image Production,” New Art Examiner, 15 January 2021.
Alyssa Brubaker, “Heishman: Elastic Arts,” Elastic Arts Press, 14 November 2020.
Michael Rakowitz and Anthony Downey, “Michael Rakowitz: I’m Good at Love, I’m Good at Hate, It’s in between I Freeze,” Sternberg Press, 2019.

Contact: robertchaseheishman@gmail.com · Instagram · Curriculum vitae (PDF)