Jeannie Langan Heins is a Chicago mixed media and installation artist who studied from an early age at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her education includes a BFA, MA, and a PhD from the University of Illinois. Sheis currently an Art Professor and member of the Graduate Faculty at University of Alabama/Huntsville, and an Online Professor of Art at Eastern Illinois University. Langan’s art centers around themes of nature and conservation, with a goal of inspiring respectful preservation of wildlife and the human soul. Her scholarly publications explore Artistic Development, Native symbolism, and Community. Her most recent publication is in the Journal of Public Health Nursing. Langan’s artwork has traveled on the space shuttle, Atlantis, and been shown at Kennedy Space Center. She participated in Christo’s Gates Project, in New York City, and in a collaborative (painted) quilt project with Maya Angelou.
Sila: to protect; a (Buddhist) code of conduct embracing commitment to harmony and freedom from causing harm. My paintings/installations, from my abstract butterfly wing series, center around themes of conservation in nature/wildlife. I speak for wildlife that cannot speak for itself, hence this story of Teinopalpus Imperialis, an endangered species. She has nobody to speak for her. The diptych shows this rare butterfly from the forested Himalayas, pulled apart; being slowly blotted out. Though law forbids it, she’s hunted (for her rarity), as slash and burn agriculture degrades her habitat. The gift of Sila can preserve her beauty.
