JACK HENRY
Brooklyn artist, Jack Henry earned his BFA in Sculpture at the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL (2007) and MFA in Sculpture at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD (2010).
Henry’s practice explores the compromised state of the environment by focusing on the spaces of untamed growth remaining in the urban landscape – where mankind’s conquest of wilderness is most evident. He portrays environmental degradation by combining found objects with plants emblematic of the city. In his Brooklyn neighborhood, wild growth is confined to empty lots and gutter spaces where he collects material from to make sculpture, installations and works on paper reflecting the compromised state of the modern landscape.
Henry embeds sticks, chains, rocks and cigarette packets within cement to become their compositional elements – leaves, rebar, cans and cables are cast out of resin and bronze to be assembled into sculptures – found paper and cardboard is collaged together to create the ground for landscape drawings. In the current series of sculptures Henry casts frail plants and objects out of resin. The likeness of each impermanent leaf is forever preserved by the toxic material complicit in the destruction of the natural world. The resin objects are combined into assemblages and relief sculptures referencing the collections of flora and detritus that amass in empty lots. He is interested in depicting the contradictions we face as an ecologically aware society functioning within a consumerist system. The mediums he selects are chosen for their ability to highlight the contradictions we face today.
Henry’s work was featured in our Fall 2021 Exhibition Ocean Body, and Caneca / Henry / Hocking in 2019. He is the recipient of several fellowships and residencies, most notably at Mass Moca Residency (2020), Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, Earthed – Ecology Themed Artists Residency Fellowship (2019), Arte_Fits.foundation, Dorado, Puerto Rico. Art in Nature Fellowship (2019).