Kathleen Henderson
Rosamund Felsen gallery press release
Irresistible Empire
June 5, 2010 — July 3, 2010
Reception: Saturday June 5th, 5-7 pm

Through a finely developed compositional acuity and a singular, fully-loaded line quality, Henderson manages to re-focus frames of human folly culled from the everyday and the eternal. Her anonymous, yet achingly-familiar characters cavort and cringe, sometimes through complex, cluttered landscapes, but more often in a theatrical void. Personal and political scandal, current and ancient wars, battles horrific and banal, all blend with a background of children’s fairy tales and ancient myths. Religious doctrine and ritual swirl menacingly around exquisite and uncanny likenesses. With these new oil stick drawings, figures are finding themselves shadowed by stains and smudges, visually abstracted and isolated even as they, “ begin to function as a narrative element in themselves,” as Henderson herself suggests. Slashes of color offer what may be redemption, or futile repentance. A small group of sculptures seems to have sprung fully formed from this new set of drawings. Henderson’s use of paper pulp, tar and tinted wax present an organic extension of her gestural narratives. The ship is listing perilously and the oily waters are rising and there is room in the lifeboats for only the rats. Irresistible Empire Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica june 5th- July 3rd OPP