THE SHAPE WE KEEP
Heather Duffy and Rebecca Senior
The second exhibition in our 2026 Cohort Showcase, The Shape We Keep is a group exhibition presented by Hammerspace Gallery at Do Not Start’s newest warehouse expansion, featuring Heather Duffy and Rebecca Senior.
A gesture repeated enough times becomes instinct.
An object carried long enough becomes symbolic.
Throughout the exhibition, familiar forms reappear charged with emotional weight. These artists consider the ways meaning is shaped through repetition: inherited roles, private rituals, acts of waiting, celebration, longing, touch, and return.
Images appear less as explanations than as traces, evidence of what persists across time, across relationships, and across bodies. Through accumulation and recurrence, the works ask how gestures become patterns, and how patterns become the forms we continue to inhabit.
The shape we make over and over until it becomes ours.
Heather Duffy
Heather Duffy (b. 1983, Houston, TX) is an American artist whose work examines access, tension, and digital connection through the lens of reproduction. Drawing from her own experiences with fertility treatment, recurrent pregnancy loss, and motherhood, Duffy creates bright, emotionally charged paintings that explore the complex, often-invisible pursuit of pregnancy.
Her recent Cycle Day series features figures attempting balance alongside portraits that spotlight the rituals, coded language, toxic positivity, and fragile sense of community that shape contemporary fertility experiences.
Originally from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Duffy lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She earned her MFA in Painting from Kendall College of Art and Design in 2012 and has exhibited nationally and regionally. In addition to her studio practice, Duffy has worked extensively in the nonprofit arts sector, including roles as Curator at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, exhibitions manager at ArtPrize, and as an independent curator for nearly twenty years.
Rebecca Senior
Rebecca is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work is inspired by the narratives of the communities she lives in. She primarily uses Acrylic, but embraces multimedia elements to add unexpected character to her paintings.
Rebecca’s narrative style comes from her love of reading and her foundation in scenic design. She credits theater with teaching her how to paint. For her patterns, she references the illustrative Art Nouveau tradition she first encountered in her childhood books and which continue to inspire her.
In 2019, Rebecca had her daughter, and her artistic practice changed dramatically. With less time, she was determined to create more intentionally. This practice helped her become enamored with the depth of ordinary life. Art was no longer a way to obsessively document life, as in her old sketchbooks, but a way to experience living. She continues to carry that sentiment with her in every piece she creates.