KATHLEEN HENDERSON
WORKS AVAILABLE
VIEWING ROOM
LA TIMES REVIEW
"In 35 blistering recent drawings at Track 16, greed, pride and vanity play out in oil stick on paper
— raw impulses matched by raw, urgent line."
by Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times
OUT TAKES
Kathleen is also continuing her collaboration with Track 16 to donate 50% of the proceeds from the sale of her Outtake drawings to support Navajo Nation. In January and February we used those funds to help register voters in Navajo communities.
Now we’re pivoting to donate donate 50% of these sales to help the Navajo communities and local hospitals confront COVID-19 surges by giving directly to the DigDeep Navajo Water Project, which is bringing Navajo families clean running water to help control the spread of the COVID-19. Navajo Nation is struggling with a high infection rate [NY Times]
and a serious lack of access to clean water [Democracy Now].
ARTIST TALK
KATHLEEN HENDERSON
with curator Jessica Hough
Held on January 30, 2020 during her recent solo exhibition.
WATCH ME MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR
January 4 - February 1, 2020
Artist in conversation with Jessica Hough: Thursday, January 30th from 7:30-8:30pm
Henderson's new artist book out-takes is now available for purchase at the gallery or online.
In her upcoming exhibition of new work at Track 16 Gallery, artist Kathleen Henderson takes on what may be the biggest issue of our crisis-laden times; human folly in the face of extinction. But she does so with a sense of humor. Henderson’s emotive drawings show man bumbling through the world, tripping and fumbling, as the litany of crises mount. Some are trapped, as Narcissus was, stupidly gazing at their own reflections. Others are more literally blinded by the bags they wear over their heads. They stand no chance of even knowing what telltale signs of doom they are missing; sitting ducks. Artemis of Ephesus, a mother goddess and protector of pregnant women, makes an appearance in two drawings. In one she has stepped onto the stage and taken the microphone; could she be our potential heroine? But Artemis cannot save even mothers and their vulnerable children in this world, now too deeply poisoned by man’s unrelenting greed. Henderson never really points the finger in her work. Instead her drawings make us all complicit in the fate that awaits us. Our human folly so evident. Our stupidity laid bare.
“Kathleen’s drawings gnaw at me long after seeing them,” says guest curator Jessica Hough. “The figures are goon-like and the quality of the line with which they are drawn adds an unsettling energy. I think she is translating onto paper a familiar feeling right now. A threat to humankind that hangs thick and heavy in our psyche.”
Known primarily for her drawings made with black oil stick on white paper, Henderson has incorporated color into this new work; in some instances suggesting a bloody rawness and at other times a queasy green toxic ooze. Thirty-five new drawings made over the last year will give audiences the chance to revisit this brilliant artist and satirist whose last solo exhibition in Los Angeles was in 2015. Henderson will also install a grid of smaller drawings on one wall that are "outtakes," or clippings, from some of her larger works. Made over a longer period of years, this array of drawings will give those new to her work a key to unlock Henderson's complex world view.
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Kathleen Henderson is a visual artist living and working in the Bay Area. Her work has been the subject of numerous solo shows in LA, and San Francisco as well as the Drawing Center in New York. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and is in the collections of the Hammer Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is currently a staff artist at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA and senior editor at the Creative Growth magazine.
Jessica Hough is an independent curator and writer living and working in Los Angeles. She served as Director of Exhibitions for the California Historical Society from 2012-2018. Previous to that she was Director, Exhibitions, Publications, and Programs at the Hammer Museum, Director of the Mills College Art Museum, and Curatorial Director at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.
Education
MFA Program, Queens College, Queens , New York BFA Painting, Boston University, Boston, MA
Solo Exhibitions
Watch Me make You Disappear- Track 16, LA, CA, 2019
New Work-
Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2014
Drawings- Paule Anglim Gallery, SF, CA 2012
Notes on a Gathering Crowd- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2012
Irresistible Empire- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2010
I Shew You A Mystery- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2008
What If I Could Draw a Bird That Could Change the World- The Drawing Center, NY, NY,2008
Time and Space Can Change Your Life- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2007
Salvador Donkey- Ashby Stage, Berkeley, CA,2005
Drawings- Stephen Wirtz Gallery, SF, CA, 2002
Selected Group Shows
Didn’t you Know What You were Carrying On Your Back - Rosalux, Berlin, Germany, 2019
The End is Here- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, LA, CA, 2016
The Nothing That Is: A Drawing Show In Five Parts- CAM Raleigh, Raleigh, NC, 2015
The Possible- Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 2014
La Bete- Galerie Impaire, Paris, France, 2010
Hot and Cold- Baer Ridgeway Exhibitions, SF, CA, 2009
Good Doll- Bad Doll- Armory Center for the Arts,Pasadena, CA, 2008
Who New?- Recent Art from the Bay Area- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2005
Drawing First- Southern Exposure at Project Artaud, SF, CA, 1993
Awards
National Endowment for the Arts, Works on Paper, 1992
Selected Bibliography
Renee Hoogland, A Violent Embrace, Art and Aesthetics after Representation, University Press of New England, 2014
Leah Ollman, A Cynical and Raw Approach Turns Searing, LA Times, Oct. 2012
Leah Ollman, Reviews, Art in America, Sept. 2012
Leah Ollman, Issues Tend to Draw Her, LA TImes, June 2010
Sharon Mizota, Critic’s Pick, Artforum.com, Nov. 2008
Leah Ollman, Keeping it Simple and Stark, LA Times, Dec. 2008
Holland Cotter, What if I Could Draw a Bird That Could Change the world?, The Listings, NY Times, Sept., 2008
Leah Ollman, Going Bit by Bit to a Larger effect, LA Times, March, 2007
Jody Zellen, Kathleen Henderson at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Artillery, Vol. 5, 2007
Lindsey Westbrook, Artweek, Vol. 36, July/Aug., 2005
Tripwire #6, Fall, 2003
Kenneth Baker, Goode and Henderson at Wirtz, San Francisco Chronicle, March, 2002
Public Collections
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Residencies
Lucas Artists Residency Program, Montalvo Art Center, Saratoga, CA, 2017, 2015 ,2012, 2009
Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, CA, 2012, 2009
The Oxbow School, Napa, CA, 2012, 2009
