About the Artist...
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Gail Henderson’s paintings focus on earth colors and natural shapes. Her work has been fostered by time spent in the American Southwest and the rural high plains of Spain. “I find these locations to be stimulating as well as humbling with their heightened color and massive natural strength.” In these abstracted works she uses layers of transparent color juxtaposed with opaque passages of acrylic paint to imply the light freshness and heavy strength of the mountains, desert plains, and the early peoples living there. “I build texture using thick paint, silica, resin, and metals to express the roughness of the terrain and natural attitude of the Southwest.” Henderson, a career educator, began her hands-on art activity in 2000. Her professional education (B.A. and Ph.D., The Ohio State University; M.A., Michigan State University) contained virtually no course work related to the art world. She maintains that her “artistic juices” were kept smoldering as an avid spectator at museums and art shows throughout the US and in Europe. She has used art workshops, courses, study of early and current artists, and introspection to develop her art. “My previous career as an educator has allowed me to gain insight into my own learning process. I work to balance experimentation and intuition with knowledge and skill. The evolving processes of teaching and learning are continually at play. I am currently most comfortable with acrylic painting using color, shape, and texture to ‘abstract’ pieces of reality.” Additionally, Henderson lectures on the lives of outstanding artists -- Picasso, O'Keeffe, and the Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950's. She maintains "studying the recent master painters -- their artistic goals, decisions and lifestyles -- provides insight into my own painting direction." Henderson’s work hangs in several private and corporate collections, including those of Duke Power, PPD Inc., and Randall Library at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Her art has been in numerous juried exhibitions including those of the Wilmington (NC) Art Association; the Watercolor Society of North Carolina; The Women’s Center (Chapel Hill, NC); Coastal Plains Exhibit (Wilson, NC); South Cobb Arts Alliance (Atlanta); Northwest New Mexico Arts Council; the International Museum of Art (El Paso); Vienna Arts Council (Vienna, VA); Cedar Key Arts Center (Cedar Key, FL); and International Watermedia XIV (Colorado Springs). She has had several solo exhibits, including Abstract Journey at Warwick Center Gallery, University of North Carolina at Wilmington and Seeing the Unexpected at the WHQR Gallery (Wilmington). She was the solo painter in a three-woman exhibit, Thrice, at the Boykin Gallery, Wilson, NC, and teamed with Russian artist Vadim Bora for an exhibit at the Artists' Gallery (TAG) at Lumina Station (Wilmington). She is represented by Raiford Gallery in Roswell, GA, the Little Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC, and the Sunset River Marketplace in Calabash, NC. |