Library Street Collective is pleased to present The River, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Heather Day. Living in the California desert, Day has grown acutely aware of the presence and absence of water in her natural surroundings, prompting a new body of paintings that consider the forces that shape the land, and the ways in which our bodies move through them. 

The show’s title references Day’s frequent hikes through the San Gorgonio Mountains toward and along the Whitewater River. In the arid landscape, one’s approach to a water source is a sensory, cumulative experience; before the river is ever visible, Day notes how the body registers signs of its proximity: the drop in temperature, the thickening vegetation, the quiet return of wildlife. She translates this phenomenon of physical arrival into a fluid process of material accumulation. Working on the studio floor, she floods raw canvas with measured mixtures of water and pigment, steering the washes while allowing gravity, evaporation, and atmospheric conditions to dictate how they disperse and stain the fibers. The color blue is treated as a psychological anchor in the pieces, with deep indigos and crisp sky tones materializing in reference to mountains, water, and horizons that remain perpetually at a distance.

Once the surfaces are prepared, Day approaches them as a malleable terrain to be dissected, rearranged, and stitched back together. Over the years, the sewing machine’s purpose in her practice has evolved from a functional tool into an active drawing agent. Tracing negative spaces and pinning opposing color fields back together, Day utilizes the stitched line to slice into the composition’s planes, embedding biomorphic, ghost-like forms into the fabric, and creating structural pathways that mirror her physical movements through space.

For Day, the human form and the physical landscape are inextricably intertwined. The non-linear sequence of sewing and painting acts as an extension of the artist’s own cognitive framework, and the compositions are dictated by the limitations and architecture of the body. The silhouettes and organic curves that emerge across the surfaces are not just abstract forms, but traces of herself moving through space and absorbing the sensory inputs of her surrounding environment. The River enforces the concept that water, land, and human movement are not isolated forces, but continually shaping one another. 

Heather Day: The River is on view from August 8 through October 10, 2026 at Library Street Collective.