NAME THE PAINTING contest
in RAC’s WINDOW DEC 12 - 31, 2025
Name this painting commissioned for Riverside’s 150th!
Name this David Heo painting on display in RAC’s FlexSpace window December 12 - 31, 2025
ARTIST DAVID HEO
David Heo (b. 1992) is a Chicago-based Korean American artist working primarily in painting and mixed media. He received both his BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Heo’s work engages themes of identity, memory, and cultural hybridity, drawing from Korean folklore, Western mythology, and contemporary visual culture. Through the use of symbolic figures, animals, and layered materials, his compositions explore emotional states and interpersonal dynamics while balancing personal narrative with broader archetypal resonance. Heo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and his practice continues to expand at the intersection of fine art, design, and immersive environments.
HOW IT CAME TO BE
Commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the Village of Riverside, this large-scale painting by David Heo reflects on the enduring legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and the continued relevance of intentional civic design in shaping communal life. Rather than offering a literal historical narrative, the work functions as a symbolic meditation on origin, continuity, and generational transition—principles central to Riverside’s founding vision and to Heo’s broader artistic practice. The commission was spearheaded by Village Trustee Joseph Fitzgerald in partnership with Riverside Arts Center and is intended as a traveling work, to be exhibited throughout Riverside and in surrounding communities. Through its symbolic and metaphorical framework, the painting highlights Olmsted’s enduring principles of civic stewardship, intentional planning, and community engagement. A public naming contest will accompany the project as part of its broader community participation initiative.
NAMING CONTEST
As part of a community outreach initiative, Riverside Arts Center, in collaboration with Village Trustee Joseph Fitzgerald, is hosting a public naming contest for a painting commissioned by Fitzgerald and created by Chicago-based artist David Heo, whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. The painting draws inspiration from Riverside’s origins as a thoughtfully planned community, referencing Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape principles through an idealized park setting that blends historical and contemporary elements. Symbolic details—such as integrated infrastructure, curated green space, and figures oriented toward both reflection and curiosity—serve as visual metaphors for continuity, stewardship, and generational transition.
The painting will be displayed in the FlexSpace window from December 12–31, during which time residents and visitors are invited to submit proposed titles. Following its initial exhibition, the work is intended to travel throughout Riverside and neighboring communities, extending its symbolic narrative and promoting broader awareness of Riverside’s civic values, the Riverside Arts Center, and the district it serves.
The composition draws visual inspiration from Central Park, Olmsted’s most influential project and a conceptual precursor to his design of Riverside, the first planned community in the United States. Heo situates the figures within an idealized park setting defined by layered greens, blues, and yellows—an atmosphere suggestive of growth, balance, and vitality. The landscape resists exact geography in favor of a distilled vision of nature as a civilizing and organizing force within public life.
Throughout the scene, Heo integrates civic symbols that anchor the painting to Riverside’s identity. A historic gas lamp establishes a quiet axis of continuity, while the village water tower, partially absorbed into the foliage, embodies Olmsted’s philosophy that infrastructure should support rather than dominate the lived environment. The most explicit reference—the map of Riverside, held by the seated figure and bearing a sketched likeness of Olmsted—invokes planning not as a fixed artifact, but as an ongoing civic responsibility. Together, these elements operate as active symbols, linking memory, stewardship, and place within a living landscape.
Two seated figures form the conceptual core of the composition. The figure on the left, engaged with the map, signifies dedication to history, design, and the foundational principles that shaped Riverside. Opposite him, the female figure registers a contemporary orientation—her expression conveying curiosity and openness toward the future. Their restrained interaction establishes a framework of parallel continuity, in which past and present coexist within shared space, connected by environment rather than direct exchange.
Formally, the work demonstrates Heo’s synthesis of art historical influence and personal language. The flattened spatial structure, simplified forms, and confident chromatic fields recall the compositional clarity of Alex Katz and David Hockney, artists whose practices translate everyday scenes into emblematic visual statements. Here, Heo adapts that visual economy toward a civic end, inviting viewers into an accessible but layered narrative.
This commission extends Heo’s ongoing engagement with memory, identity, and hybridity, redirecting those concerns toward collective history and place-based meaning. As Riverside looks beyond its sesquicentennial milestone, the painting stands not simply as commemoration, but as affirmation of a community shaped by foresight, care, and sustained intentional design.
