Schiavo Mazzonis Gallery

Born in 1975, he lives and works between Minneapolis and New York.

After graduating the University of Michigan in 1998, he furthered his studies with a postgraduate Master in Fine Arts at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Since 2000 Jay Heikes' work has been shown extensively in the United States, in institutions such as the P.S.1, New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The New Museum, New York. In 2006 his work was included in the Whitney Biennial and in ‘Ordinary Culture: Heikes/Helms/McMillian' at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Jay Heikes' practice explores the role of the artist, seen as a kind of entertainer. Through his props, sculptures, drawings, static ‘tv screen' paintings, he continuously re-tells a story or a joke, as in a theater of absurdity, where stasis and repetition create an existential dilemma.