Lucia Heffernan

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Heffernan became fascinated with painting animals, buying chicks and mice from local farms and pet stores to use as models, and sneaking onto local farms to photograph their horses, sheep, cows, and pigs. Over time, however, she became restless with traditional animal portraiture and gradually expanded her repertoire to include animals engaged in human activities. She began to pose her chicks and mice in human-like scenarios, photographing the scenes to use as painting models. Her skills in illustration, graphic design, and Photoshop proved essential to creating more complicated human settings for her animals, which she then could paint in a traditionally realistic style. Heffernan’s first public exhibition was at the annual Art & Soup charity event organized by Community Nursing Services in 2014.