Mary Heebner: Mapping the Geography of a Face April 7, 2014

In the multi dimensional installation Silent Faces/Angkor, Mary Heebner knits together imagery and writing to create an elemental, spiritual and involving interpretation of the myths of the ancient Angkor temple complex that plays on the links she has found between human and geographic forms. Mary Heebner often turns to myth to broaden her understanding of the bonds between humans and the earth. When she went to Cambodia's Angkor temple complex in 2000 and 2001, she began a series she called geography of a face to further her exploration of the connection between human and geographic form. Through both drawing and photography she engaged Angkor Wat?s twelfth century frieze, the Churning of the Sea of Milk and the other sculptural works there. While humans have always carved likenesses in stone, those figures just as surely erode and return to the earth. The ancient myth she studied and the eroded faces she read as maps shaped her path to creation of the books, scroll paintings, drawings and texts that make up this striking and profound installation.