Jessie Henson
Where are you now?
Jessie Henson (American, born 1977)
Where are you now?, 2024
Polyester and rayon thread on paper
82 x 54 x 2 3/4 in. (208.3 x 137.2 x 7 cm)
Courtesy of Broadway Gallery, LLC
Estimate: $75,000 - $100,000
Where are you now?, 2024, is a stunning, large-scale example of Henson’s exquisite abstractions that blend drawing, sculpture, and tapestry into one unique work. Using an industrial sewing machine to draw with thread on paper, Henson’s work with fiber creates tension that ultimately overwhelms the paper surface to create undulating surfaces reminiscent of topography. Thousands of fragile lines of thread combine into solid strength with wild burst of colors representing emotional states of mind.
About the Artist
Jessie Henson (American, born 1977) lives and works in New York City and Delhi, NY. Henson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1999 from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. She then received a Master of Fine Arts in 2007 from the School of Mason Gross at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Henson employs notions of labor and time in her artmaking, looking for ways that repetitive actions of daily life accrue and build meaning, while pushing material elements to the threshold of fracture and disintegration. Mining the history of embroidery, Henson uses an industrial sewing machine to draw with thread on paper. As thread accrues, tension begins to overwhelm the paper, warping its surface into furrows and waves that result in undulating, topographical surfaces. Wild bursts of color penetrate the stillness of the paper. The movement of the threaded lines counters the quiet of the surface which bends with pull of the thread’s stitch and is ruptured by the fast-moving needle. Colors serve as the base of different emotional states of mind: pensive, passionate, furtive. The accumulation becomes an act of putting on armor, building up strength. Paradoxically, if the sewing builds up too much, the paper tears apart, laying bare the fragility of the underlying structure.
The resulting sculptural and rendered forms often resemble environments, maps, landscapes, and scientific diagrams of the natural world. Merging the vernaculars of drawing, sculpture, and tapestry, Henson blurs the boundaries between these worlds.
Jessie Henson has had solo exhibitions at Bushell Collective, Delhi, NY and A.I.R. Gallery, New York City. Recent group exhibitions include Thread Hijack, Hunterdon Museum, Clinton, NJ; Lightning Loom, 208 Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY; Surfaces, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles; Poetics of the Afterimage, Dieu Donne Papermill, New York City; Line, Bruce Gallery, Edinboro University, Endinboro, PA; The Quiet Show, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR; Commissaries, Foam Corp., Los Angeles; Altered Views: Experiencing the Contemporary Landscape, The Loudon House, Lexington, KY; Studio Mates, Front Room Gallery, New York City; Converge 45, Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; Micro to Macro, Cuchifritos, New York City; Casa De Empena, Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City; reCOVERED, Frosh and Portmann, New York City.
Henson has been an artist in residence at the Bronx Museum of Art, New York City; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; Urban Glass, New York City; the Laundromat Project, New York City; and Dieu Donne Papermill, New York City.
Gallery Profile | Artist's Website | Instagram
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