The Tremaine Gallery’s first exhibit of the 2025-26 school year, Adrift—Selected Washi Works 2017-2025, features the large-scale prints of painter and printmaker Daniel Heyman.
Daniel Heyman lives in Rhode Island and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Princeton University. He was awarded the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts and the 2009 Pew Fellowship in the Arts. His works have been on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Ms. Terri Moore, director of the Tremaine Gallery, said, “We have a print studio downstairs, but we don’t have a dedicated printmaking class, so it’s one of the things I’ve been really looking at for in terms of artist residencies. As I was searching, Mr. Bradley suggested I take a look at Mr. Heyman, a Dartmouth alum. I loved his work right away.”
The process of curating a show in the gallery entails selecting, organizing, and presenting a collection of artworks to tell a cohesive story. Ms. Moore said, “When you come to this exhibit, it’s very elegant, minimal, and balanced. I hope the audience develops a different appreciation for landscape and the ways a story can be told.”
As a frequent traveler between the U.S., France, and Japan, Mr. Heyman has been inspired by a diverse range of artistic traditions. “My work pulls on themes from these visual cultures, sometimes in overt ways and sometimes in less obvious ways,” said Mr. Heyman. “This can present in the form of a work of art, or in the techniques used to make it, or in understanding what other works of art it might refer to.”
His works “Adrift” and “Swimming against the Storm” utilize ancient Japanese pulp-paper-making techniques, which he learned at the Awagami Paper Factory on Shikoku Island.
The handmade paper, known as washi, incorporates the fiber of three plants—ozo (mulberry), hemp and gampi—which are cooked, rinsed, cleaned, beaten, and pressed onto screens to dry. Mr. Heyman draws and prints on this paper. In many cases, he also uses colored paper pulp to compose his images.
His work is often inspired by political and environmental issues. “I am deeply concerned about climate change and its effects on life on earth. I live by the coast, and I am very concerned by the prospect of rising sea levels, which is already very noticeable in my own lifetime,” said Mr. Heyman. “I am also moved by the pollution caused by wildfires, which I experienced to an alarming degree in June of 2023, when the skies on the East Coast went orange for several days due to fires thousands of miles away in Canada. You can see a translation of this idea in two of the banners in the exhibit, which depict geese flying in orange-colored skies.”
Mr. Heyman spent ten days on campus instructing visual arts students in traditional Japanese wood-cut techniques. His residency concluded with a gallery talk on October 7, and his work will remain on exhibit through October 11.
