Heather Renée Russ

Heather Renée Russ (she/they) works across photography and installation. They blend organic marine materials with queer femme signifiers, like wig hair and false eyelashes. Their work engages with themes of displacement while celebrating the vibrant communities queers have historically created in cities by the sea. They utilize experimental photography to create detailed imagery, incorporating glitch. Russ’s recent work is influenced by queer ecology and speaks to the fragmentation many queers feel as spaces of gathering, including queer beaches, are under threat from climate change and gentrification. Russ has been working with photography for 20 years, both analogue and digital. She spent the first half of her career documenting early aughts queer San Francisco from within a community of artists. Russ also draws from a rich history of stewarding underground art spaces. She co-produced Club Feral, a raucous queer nightclub in San Francisco and the collaborative space in Brooklyn known as Lair Fera.

Heather Renée Russ showed at NADA Miami with Paradice Palase during 2023 Miami Art Week. She participated in SPRING/BREAK Art Show in NYC during 2023 Armory Week as both an artist and a curator. She has also shown at SomoS in Berlin, IMT Gallery in London and Satellite Art Fair in Miami. In New York, she has shown at Flux Factory, ChaShaMa, Ethan Cohen’s Kube and also with Paradice Palase at the Other Art Fair. She has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center, ChaShaMa North, TransBorder Art on Governors Island and at MASS MoCA where she also returned as an alumni resident. Russ is currently in residence at NARS in NYC and has an upcoming residency at LMCC on Governors Island.

Heather Renée Russ lives and works in New York City.