Featured Artist: Lilah Heyman
Little Moments, Big Color
March 2026 Artist of the Month Lilah Heyman invites us to pause and rediscover the beauty in our daily lives.
Story and interview by Jason A. Coombs
The Bridgeport Art Trail is proud to spotlight Lilah Heyman as our March 2026 Artist of the Month! A Bridgeport-based painter, Lilah brings a vibrant and deeply personal approach to her work, using bold color, pattern, and movement to capture the beauty found in everyday life. With a BFA from Fairfield University and an MFA in Painting from Western Connecticut State University, her work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions and solo shows across Connecticut, quickly establishing her as a dynamic and emerging voice in the regional arts community!
We had the opportunity to sit down with Lilah to talk more about her artistry and dive into her experience as a local visual artist. Through her richly layered still lifes and interior scenes, Lilah invites viewers to pause, look closer, and find meaning in the quiet, often overlooked moments that shape our daily lives.
Can you tell us a little about where you’re from and what first inspired you to become a visual
artist?
I grew up in Trumbull, CT, as one of 6 girls. My Bubbe (grandmother in yiddish) was an artist, and our walls were always covered in her work. She worked in mostly watercolors and pastels. It was wonderful to grow up surrounded by beautiful art in my home and to be able to see being an artist as a life path. I had access to a lot of art materials growing up, but I didn’t begin to think about pursuing art more seriously until I was 16 when taking art classes in high school.
Your paintings highlight the beauty found in everyday moments. What draws you to documenting daily life and quiet rituals through your work?
I think there is intimacy in the quiet rituals of life. In my work I make beauty out of the Everyday; I want the viewer to feel invited into my home and my space. I find it very interesting to examine what objects we surround ourselves with, and how these objects create a portrait of their owner. My paintings come from a desire to slow down and hold onto the small moments in life. I capture the little pieces that mark each specific moment in time, from wedding invitations and take out menus in the back of Trader Joe’s Flour, to the stack on my bookshelf in To Be Read.
Color plays such a vibrant role in your paintings. How do you think about color as a way of creating energy, light, and emotion within your work?
In my work, I think about color as light. If I am looking at something white, I try to put as many different colors and tints as I can. I love bold and vibrant colors. I love bright colors and the energy that they hold. I start the majority of my paintings with a bright wash of color, I usually use naphthol red (it used to be cadmium red light but I switched for my health), but sometimes it is a lime green or a hot pink. I try to use a ground color that will contrast well with the main colors of the painting. A bright ground brings a lot of light into a painting, so that it is almost glowing. I feel energetic when I start painting on top of a bold color, and I think that energy flows into my work, even if I paint over all of the ground color.
Sometimes I paint with more flat washes of color, like I do with the pink background in Sour Taste. I feel like the pink both explores a feminine identity while also creating a feeling of overwhelm in the viewer. The pink holds some heaviness and anxiety in it, which I think is important to the piece.
In honor of Women’s History Month, are there women artists or mentors who have influenced your creative journey, and how have they shaped the way you think about your work?
There are many women who have influenced my creative journey. A majority of the artists that I am inspired by are women. In my own life, I looked up to my Bubbe a lot as an artist. I grew up surrounded by her work and it really made it a possibility in my mind that I could be an artist as well. She created watercolors and pastel works of florals and landscapes. Her work is much looser and more expressive than mine, but it encourages me to challenge my ideas of control in my own compositions. My professor at Fairfield University, Suzanne Chamlin-Richer, is an amazing artist who taught me so much about color, as well as how to really address a whole painting, making the background just as important as the subject of the painting.
At the NEST, I have gotten to know Suzanne Kachmar, who makes such poignant and thoughtful oil paintings. I have learned from Suzanne how to create more conceptual, political paintings within the genre of still life. In the broader contemporary art world, I have several artists I am inspired by. A few of my all time favorite artists are Jenny Saville, Sophie Treppendahl, and Janet Fish. Jenny Saville was one of the first artists I saw who really captivated me.
I saw her painting, Reverse, and I was so taken by how vulnerable and raw the piece is. I want my work to feel as vulnerable as hers do. I invite the viewer to step into my home and observe the spaces, people, and things that I love. I aspire to make work as raw and expressive as hers. I love her bold brush strokes, and how she explores movement in her work as well.
In Janet Fish’s work, I admire the detail and how magical she makes everyday scenes. She elevates the mess of life. Her portrayal of glass and plastic packaging is just exquisite. It is so realistic it almost becomes abstract up close.
That intersection of realism and abstraction is something I am intrigued by. Sophie Treppendahl creates still lives and interior scenes of beautiful, intimate moments in her home and studio. I am forever captivated by the personal touches in her work. I have seen her work in person and you can just lose yourself in her paintings. They are painted in a looser style, and packed full of paintings she loves and notes to herself and books she is reading. Like her, I love putting a painting within a painting. I love to get to paint it in my own style, or if it was my own work, see how it changes in its second making. Treppendahl is extremely experimental with her use of color, and I love seeing how playful it can be, and how it can shift the mood of a composition. It challenges me to be more expressive and playful with color in my own work.
As an artist living and working in Bridgeport, how has the local arts community influenced your creative journey and development as a painter?
I think it is so inspiring to see the art that the community creates. I go to local shows often
and it is so cool to see all different kinds of art and be a part of such a lively community. I have a studio at the Nest Arts Factory, so I am surrounded by so many amazing artists. Working in a community helps me to stay motivated in making new work, being surrounded by art inspires me to make more, and expand my creativity. Kat Evans has a studio across the hall from me, and she creates beautiful, abstract paintings with vivid swaths of color that I love. I think the combinations that she finds and her mark making is really interesting, and I think those colors definitely influence my work.
Sharon Smalls creates these very joyful paintings with fun neon colors that are so awesome to see. I love Carlos Biernnay’s textile installations. The embroidery work is so beautiful and intricate, and it has inspired me to work with more mixed media, including embroidery with my paintings. I am currently working on a larger painting of myself and my husband, and after the painting part is finished I want to embroider it, connecting us with thread.
I think Suzanne (Kachmar) has also really influenced my work. Her paintings are more tonal than mine, and have very delicate shifts in value that I really admire. Her work is so conceptual as well, with such a strong focus on political issues. This has been inspiring me to be more outwardly political in my own work. For a while I wasn’t sure how to make anything conceptual, given that I only paint still lives and interior scenes, but seeing Suzanne’s work helped me to find a path forward. I saw avenues for how objects could represent my values and concerns for the world around me. Being a part of the local art community has broadened my horizons, and helped me to see how I can push my paintings into new directions.
Curator’s Note from Suzanne Kachmar, BAT Executive Director:
Large scale still-lifes are animated by vibrant color punctuated by dark blacks and blues, form and brush stroke. The placement and perspective of objects create an intimate view of a casual moment in contemporary domesticity, where common objects evoke feeling and meaning.
Rumpled bed sheets, a misplaced cowboy boot, houseplant, laptop, Valentine’s Day chocolates and strategically selected books are among the mundane stuff portraying personal and universal significance. Lilah invites the viewer to linger in the moment and ponder the comfort and uncertainty of home, interpersonal relationships and current events.