Most months of the year Heike lives in Arlington, Virginia, together with her husband Claus and a Labrador named Becca. The rest of the year she spends in Hamburg, Germany or travelling. Born and raised in Germany, she and her husband moved to the Washington DC area in 1986. She has a studio in both countries where she paints mostly landscapes and cityscapes, but she also paints en plein air in the different locations she lives in and travels to. Heike painted from an early age, but began painting in earnest only until her late 50's. After a successful career as lawyer, researcher and international justice reform expert that took her around the globe, she decided a more balanced, creative approach to life was needed. Since then she has painted with several well-known American artists, such as Glen Kessler, Diane Tessler, Greg Kessler, Ted Reed, Fred Markham, Jill Banks, Adrienne Kralik, and Patrick Kirwin. She has a law degree and Ph.D, from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and is completing a certificate course in International World Art History at the prestigious Smithsonian Institute. She is participating national and international art exhibitions and plein air competitions, participates in art fairs, is part of different art associations and has exhibited in several galleries in the Washington DC area. Impressionists, especially Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt, and Max Liebermann, have long been her favorite painters. Their use of color, light and shadow, as well as the fact that their beautiful paintings broke with was then considered high quality art, is what inspired her to try something similar in our times. Equally influential and shaping her style are more recent realism painters, especially Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. As a result, her style is modern impressionism with a touch of realism. Following the techniques of the old masters and impressionists, she paints in her studio or en plein air. Using brushes, palette knifes and other tools, she works in oil on good canvas and board, experiments with different surfaces, like mirrored Plexiglas, and enjoys occasionally painting with pastels. The aim in her art is to create reflective impressions of the landscapes, monuments, buildings, objects and people around us, using an element of humor, when applicable. The counterpoints of light and shadow, contrasting colors, is often central in her work, sometimes to show harmony, sometimes to depict contrast and different views.