TWS: Last time I interviewed you was in January 2020… what a pivotal moment
PH: Seems like an eternity and not that far back, at the same time…
TWS: Exactly So many things happened in between, but it seems that everything is still the same as it ever was. Have many things changed in your life since our last interview?
PH: I moved twice! First from Toronto to Peterborough, Ontario to escape the pandemic a bit. Then back to Sackville on the East coast of Canada, to take a job as the Director of Struts Gallery, an artist-run-centre. It’s a place I had lived/worked previously from 2004-14. So it was familiar and quiet. We knew we could be involved with community and be able to afford a home and spend more time outdoors.
TWS: Wow! those were some eventful years! How was your art practice affected or informed by these changes?
PH: Since coming back to a day job after 5 years of being freelance/full-time artist, I definitely don’t have as much time for my work. That said, having a steady income has allowed us to buy a small home with dedicated studio space, so we’re playing the long game a bit and do plan to get back to freelance eventually. My life tends to move in 5-year chunks, I’m just over 2 in this one.
New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada generally, are like a small town, so connecting to the art community is much easier here than Toronto, in some ways.
TWS: 5 years plans. Sounds like a nice time measure. If you had to name this 5 year period somehow, how would it be?
PH: Facing Adulthood
TWS: We have it face it sooner or later 🙂
Let’s talk about your art. I’ve been following your work closely since we last spoke and I have my own ideas about how it has changed, but how do you feel it has evolved in the last years?
PH: I think I’ve been able to narrow in on few things and develop some actual series or bodies of work. Looking back to 2014 when I really started to develop a practice again, I chewed through a lot of different ideas and approaches very quickly.
TWS: In what sense you feel your body of work in 2023 is different from the one in 2020? (if you feel that it is different somehow)
PH: A lot of what I’m still working on (and what’s in this current show) began in 2020. Specifically working with these portraits from art history books. I’m less tempted now to divert my attention to something new, or at least resist that temptation. Pictorially I’m better at editing and limiting the visual noise. Part of me always wants to create dynamic visual chaos, so I’m always trying to quiet things down and have a bit more clarity and simplicity.
TWS: I also feel that, compared to your work from few years ago, there’s a new sense of urgency and a need to create more raw, expressive and sometimes even more chaotic way. Do you feel connected with this feeling that i’ve got?
PH: I do. As this work developed, it became easier for me to see what I kinds of things I can talk about or at least point to, so the decisions on source material and what to cut became clearer. I still like to think the work is open and somewhat ambiguous, but ideas of power, masculinity, violence and capitol are evident.
TWS: There’s also a feeling of struggle in many of your pieces. A struggle between past and present and a struggle of elements trying to define meaning. Do you think that the idea of forces clashing to create meaning can be a possible description of your approach to art?
PH: I’d agree with that though it hasn’t occurred to me as such! Maybe that’s all collage?! It’s definitely the most exciting part, bringing these disparate pieces to together. Meaning really develops over time for me, even this conversation is changing how I think about things. It was lovely to chat with a large group of folks at the opening on Friday, and hear their thoughts.
TWS: Tell us about your latest exhibition that’s opening on Friday. What are you showing there?
PH: It’s called Heroes & Leaders and it’s up until November 4th at Galerie d’art Françoise-Chamard-Cadieux
in Aberdeen Cultural Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. There are 40 works total, made between 2020-23. 23 are in the same series done on single pages of art history text books, collaging over top of painting and a couple of drawings. The other 15 are a mix of work at various sizes, most still using portraiture as a starting point.
TWS: Heroes and Leaders is connected to the source material of the images you use, but I also see a way of critique, since the outcome of your collages is full is not full of chaos. Does this make any sense to you?
PH: For sure. I’m not trying to be critical of those original works or artists though, just generally speaking to the history of that genre of painting (portraiture), in that the subjects are generally rich, powerful men (and sometimes their families).
TWS: Even though many things have changed since those paintings were made, art keeps being related with power structures… so I guess there’s a long way to go.
Who are your real heroes?
PH: In collage I’d have to say Lou Beach! He’s been making incredible and unique work for a long time and remains under the radar in contemporary collage circles. Locally, I’m lucky to be surrounded and supported by a great group of artists that I’d consider heroes including Andrea Mortson, Graeme Patterson, Jerry Ropson, Shary Boyle, Simone Schmidt, John Murchie and my partner Amy Siegel.
TWS: Cool list of heroes. Thanks for sharing them.
Is there anything that you’d like to say before we leave?
PH: Thank you! I’m grateful for the support and conversation, and for the labour that’s involved (with website, socials, podcast etc. 🙂
Paul Henderson. Heroes & Leaders
September 8 – November 4, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday September 8, 5-7pm
Galerie d’art Françoise-Chamard-Cadieux
Aberdeen Cultural Centre (2nd Floor)
140 Botsford St, Moncton, NB E1C 4X5
Heroes & Leaders is a series hand-cut, analog, paper collages that use a variety of found imagery to explore relationships between art history, masculinity, and systems of power and capital. The collages combine art historical material, children’s books, illustrated encyclopedias, religious texts, and vintage print material, physically and psychically processing an unceasing repository of images, the news cycle, popular culture, and religion. This synthesis of disparate source material creates strange and lyrical images that are simultaneously critical, ambiguous, humorous, poetic, and visually dynamic.
Artist Statement: My exploration as an artist is driven by a desire to create a unique visual language, to find and create meaning or a point of view, and to take an active, creative role in my own life. I don’t set out with the intention to make collage ‘about’ a particular subject, but instead let ideas emerge through the making and curiosity. I try to remain open to possibilities and often improvise when I work, relying on chance juxtapositions to create interesting visual relationships and develop meaning. I try to create visually dynamic works, held together by tensions between surface pattern, graphic elements, and pictorial illusion. My hope is to make work that is open, poetic, optically interesting, and asks questions.
Learn more about Paul Henderson on his website and Instagram
