Heidi Scheidl - Artist Statement

The Litterbox of Life, also referred to as Mourning Harold — the Living Tomb, is an interactive cathuman grotto featuring paintings, a structure (also referred to as the Litterbox of Life), and objects composed, curated, and grafted by The Familial Order of the Cat. The structure features a library (holding several unique copies of Mourning Harold — the Play), an ossuary, and a Place Setting for Grief. In the present exhibition, the Litterbox of Life is set as a space for theory, however, at other times, it functions as a theater. The paintings on the wall, collectively referred to as “Lineage,” are forgeries (at various states of completion) of the Codex Cattus, an illuminated manuscript. Illuminated by a human and written (scented) by a cat (c. 300 CE), historical vignettes (from 2000 BCE to the present day) are depicted visually. Unfortunately, to this day, humans have proven unsuccessful in deciphering the text.

Heidi Scheidl - Artist Bio

Scheidl, Heidi (b. 1983, Oregon) printmaker, painter, soft sculpture maker.

With a background in humanities and library and information science, Scheidl is an academic, researcher, craftshuman, playwright, and an adolescent survivor of a pancreaticoduodenectomy. Scheidl’s technical background was developed in a library, where she produced and maintained collections of archival microphotography of historic newspapers. Her creative practice was forged under the leadership of her familial cats, and includes techniques of relief, transfer, collage, and grafting to produce objects of devotion for her feline companions.

Acting as an embodied form of self-therapy and a ritualized social practice, Scheidl blends art with critical theory, animal studies, and mad studies to open conversations regarding more-than-human grief, mourning, cohabitation, and play. Her recent work retrofits anthropic domestic furnishings and includes marginal matter (such as print litter) to materialize built environments for interspecies collaborations in life, death, and the spaces in between.