Heidi Cheris is an artist and interior designer outside of Boston. In 1986 she received her BFA from Cornell University, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. At Cornell she was awarded the Faculty Medal of Art, John "Kip" Brady Prize in Printmaking, and graduated as a Merrill Presidential Scholar.  In addition, she studied painting at Parsons School of Design in Paris and received the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship to attend Yale University's Norfolk School of Art. In 1988 she received her MFA from CUNY, Brooklyn College where she studied with William T. Williams, Philip Pearlstein, Robert Henry, and Allen D'Arcangelo, and was awarded the Charles G. Shaw Award in Painting. She has taught Color and Design at Salem State College and Art at Gann Academy. Since 2000 she has been an Interior Designer at Details Design Consultants with her business partner, Rosita Fine.

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Heidi has always looked to the decorative arts as inspiration for her work. Quilts, tiles, Oriental rugs, Islamic miniatures, and fabrics form the back drop for her pieces, combining the concepts of high and low art. She is influenced by the work of Matisse with his colorful simplicity of forms and his use of fabrics in his work. She is also inspired by the Nabis Painter, Vuillard, who incorporated a rich tapestry of textiles in his paintings.

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Her work as a designer as well as the fabrics that fill her studio provide inspiration for her most current series of intimate fabric still lifes. Juxtaposing images of fabrics which relate to each other in terms of color, light and pattern create a playful and joyful patchwork on the canvas.  There is a contrast of flattened and rendered forms depicting brilliantly colored layered swatches.  Checks, dots, florals and stripes compete and harmonize to create a lively surface of rhythms and textures.

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