Annie Irene Hejny is a voice for the earth. She has exhibited nationally including at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, and Phipps Center for the Arts. Her artwork is held in private collections in 30 states and internationally, including Mayo Clinic, Minnesota Vikings Art Collection, Target Corporation, and University of Minnesota Physicians Clinics.
She has been awarded the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, Kolman & Reeb Gallery Project Space Grant, and Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individual Grant. Artist residencies include: Lanesboro Arts with the Jerome Foundation, Science Museum of Minnesota Artist at Pine Needles, Grand Marais Art Colony, and Anderson Center at Tower View. As a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and a Minnesota Water Steward, her artwork reflects our human connection with nature through freshwater protection. Hejny is represented by salonlb. (Chicago) and Veronique Wantz (Minneapolis). She works in Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Annie Irene Hejny is a Minneapolis-based artist and environmental activist. Her work strives to celebrate nature’s beauty while simultaneously wrestling with humanity’s devastating impact upon the environment. During this time of climate emergency, she explores personal and communal relationships with fresh water, acknowledging that all humans are bodies of water and are connected by water. Informed by a life immersed in playing outside and freshwater advocacy, Hejny integrates respectfully collected materials from her local environment such as water and sediments from rivers and lakes, fallen snow, and decaying tree bark, in tandem with manufactured pigments to investigate the complexity and uncertainty of the human existence in a climate-imperiled world. While her work is rooted in the Midwest, the need for water is a universal experience, and she believes that protecting and preserving this vital life source is our greatest hope.
Annie Hejny is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Activities are made possible by the votes of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
