Heidi Mraz

Mixed Media Artist

Heidi Mraz is a contemporary fine artist best known for her intricate collages of high-end collectible automobiles. Her artwork is remarkably polished and refined considering her medium -- torn bits from car magazines, press clipping and more. Her clever treatment of the materials leads viewers through a playful ride that is skillfully engineered to fool the eye into seeing a photorealistic illustration of a car from a distance, but take a step closer and the collage shifts to a deeper narrative blended within the overarching image.

 

2011, inspired by her passion of classic cars and Katie’s Cars & Coffee - a Mecca for car enthusiasts that turns out a bevy of classic and rare cars weekly - Mraz began her “Must Love Cars” collage series that included the iconic race cars from the late 1950s thru the early 1970s. Today Mraz is concentrating on commissions that are built from a palette of torn test notes, historical data, schematics, magazines, photos and more. The finished artwork is virtual scrapbook of the storied history of the automobile portrayed.

 

“The trickiest part is designing an image that’s fine tuned enough to look like a photo from a distance,” Mraz said. “When in actuality, it’s a bed of organized chaos and abstract colors.” It is that clever unconventional interplay of elements that make Mraz’s work unique.

 

Nowadays Mraz’s passion for painting all things automotive is fueled on by an endless source of inspiration that is just around the bend from her working studio and gallery. Most Saturday mornings, she can be found at Katie’s Cars & Coffee where she has just begun another series of automotive art using coffee to paint cars.