Heather Pollington

Our Lady of the Sign
Egg Tempera
28 x 36cm

Biography

After studying Fine Art at University, Heather lead an extensive career in the Hollywood film industry for twenty years. She designed many pieces of sets, scenery, costumes and props for characters in many beloved movie franchises including James Bond, Harry Potter and Mary Poppins. This career came out of, and instilled a deep love of storytelling, characterisation and the desire to transmit ideas to audiences of ordinary people. The film industry provided a fertile training ground for Heather as it combined big picture thinking with high craftsmanship and exposure to many different types of historical expressions of art.

While researching for her designs on the Disney fairytale ‘Maleficent 2’ she discovered Medieval Christian art and Byzantine Iconography. This lead her on a long journey back home in to the Church and back to her first love, painting. Discovering iconography answered all the questions that had been unanswered by previous artistic practices: on a personal level it was a way to serve God through a process of spiritual and artistic practice. In a wider sense, it was the chance to create something physical, beautiful and meaningful for the Christian community that she was now part of.

After studying under Dr. Irina Bradley, Heather enrolled on the Icon painting programme under Aidan Hart in order to extend her practice further. The spiritual and artistic journey continued under Aidan’s tutelage and in 2023, Heather was received in to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Heather now works as a full time artist, painting icons and illustrating and designing books for iconographer Jonathan Pageau of The Symbolic World.

Heather is particularly interested in the saints of Britain and she hopes to dedicate the rest of her career to painting them through her long term project ‘Icons of the Isles.’