Heather Lynn Donovan is a Canadian artist and storyteller whose work explores memory, folklore, and the quiet emotional weight carried by places and objects.
She is the creator of Ancestors Tavern, a growing body of dark, narrative imagery that blends gothic atmosphere with imagined histories. Each piece belongs to a larger world—rooms filled with watchers, keepers, and figures who linger between memory and myth.
Donovan is also the founder and creative director of HLD Publishing, the studio through which Ancestors Tavern and her other creative projects are developed and shared.
Her work often draws on the feeling that some places hold stories long after the people who lived them are gone. Old buildings, inherited objects, family fragments, and forgotten photographs all shape the atmosphere of her images.
Alongside her visual work, she writes and records stories set within the Tavern itself, expanding the world through podcast episodes and written pieces that invite listeners and viewers to step further into the rooms she creates.
A portion of proceeds from Ancestors Tavern artwork sales is donated to organizations that support mental health and the protection of vulnerable people, including the Canadian Mental Health Association and Three Oaks Foundation in Belleville, Ontario, which provides shelter and support for women and children escaping abuse.
She lives and works in Belleville, Ontario Canada, where she continues building the world of Ancestors Tavern—one image, one story, and one room at a time.
She is the creator of Ancestors Tavern, a growing body of dark, narrative imagery that blends gothic atmosphere with imagined histories. Each piece belongs to a larger world—rooms filled with watchers, keepers, and figures who linger between memory and myth.
Donovan is also the founder and creative director of HLD Publishing, the studio through which Ancestors Tavern and her other creative projects are developed and shared.
Her work often draws on the feeling that some places hold stories long after the people who lived them are gone. Old buildings, inherited objects, family fragments, and forgotten photographs all shape the atmosphere of her images.
Alongside her visual work, she writes and records stories set within the Tavern itself, expanding the world through podcast episodes and written pieces that invite listeners and viewers to step further into the rooms she creates.
A portion of proceeds from Ancestors Tavern artwork sales is donated to organizations that support mental health and the protection of vulnerable people, including the Canadian Mental Health Association and Three Oaks Foundation in Belleville, Ontario, which provides shelter and support for women and children escaping abuse.
She lives and works in Belleville, Ontario Canada, where she continues building the world of Ancestors Tavern—one image, one story, and one room at a time.