Julie Heffernan (born 1956 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American painter whose work has been described by the writer Rebecca Solnit as "a new kind of history painting"[1] and by The New Yorker as "ironic rococo surrealism with a social-satirical twist".
Heffernan's family moved when she was five from Illinois and was subsequently raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.
[6] Her imaginative landscapes feature such elements as exploding cities, castoff gods and garbage, and falling torrents of animals, meteors and gemstones.
These elements reflect her view of the world after "calamities" such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill threaten to make it unlivable.
In 2023, Hirschl & Adler Modern presented Hoffernan's solo exhibit, The swamps are pink with June.