Recent Drawings
View my ongoing series on www.madebyhenken.com and follow me on Instagram @madebyhenken These additional drawings are from themes generated by my connections online during the COVID19 pandemic.
Dimensions: 6″x6″
Medium: Masonite, Gouache, Ink
Presented at:
Grand Small Works
F.U.E.L. Gallery
Philadelphia, PA
Handmade Jewelry
f(x) = A line of jewelry based on equations.
f(x) is a collection of simple yet elegant sterling silver jewelry based on mathematical equations. In an age where data representation proliferates the cultural milieu, it is easy to feel separated from these esoteric expressions. This collection seeks to highlight a beauty of information we are surrounded with every day. The packaging of each piece pulls from the equation that the piece is based on, providing an x and y-axis where the jewelry can be presented in context.
My Role
Created and branded concept for product line. Designed and crafted jewelry and packaging material. Marketed and sold the line to local stores in Philly and Baltimore.
Every Lone Wolf Has a Moon
Equal and opposite: a story.
“Every Lone Wolf Has a Moon” is a story about two opposite entities that exist in union. The lone wolf and the moon are individual by nature yet not the same without each other. They speak in different forms (sound and light), yet form a perfect bond. This is a metaphor for the paradox of yearning for both independence and union: of two beings (or qualities) who can’t exist as is without the other, yet desire to be alone. It is a mutual understanding that is what unites them and makes them ‘perfect opposites.’
The story is also a thought painting of the inherent beauty of perfect opposition which exists in both metaphor and form. By painting two opposing images with words: one of a night sky merging with city lights and the other of a wet road reflecting a gray, cloud-filled sky, there is synergy between this metaphor and form. Speaking each one of the opposing qualities by name emphasizes that beauty of opposites exists in language well. Just as the city lights meets the starry sky, so too does: the earth meet sky, artificial meet natural, and microcosm meet macrocosm. The same is true of the mirror images of the open road reflecting the gray sky, and the same binary pairs are encountered (earth-sky, artificial-natural, micro-macro).
I believe there to be beauty in isolating these patterns in language, in imagery and form. Just as we see symmetry in the physical earth, so too can we see this symmetry in mental models or patterns through which we find meaning. In the age of the internet, classification, tagging, and information hierarchy are the building blocks to networks and navigation. When images collide with inherently opposite qualities this idea of the union of opposites meets the intangible work of the mind.
Extension Lamp
Grandma’s Chair
Woman Shelf
Introceptual Ghostland
“A collaborative project: 9 artists, 10 site-specific vignettes along the “tour” route of an interactive, public theatrical show in Bushwick/Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY”. The show was presented twice at the Bushwick Biennial 2009 and Conflux Festival 2009. Participants where lead on a journey through the streets of Buckwick, a small neighborhood in Brooklyn, with tour guide Sean Wrenn (also known as scrapworm). Improvisational music and dance performances were interwoven with the cityscape as participants meandered through the tour. Sean’s tour framed the performance with commentaries on consciousness, reality, and metaphysics. Henken performed movement as a character who beckoned the participants into an alternate dimension, a world of dream-time, in order to recognize that this is merely one way of perceiving the world as it is.
Performed at:
Bushwick Biennial
nurtureArt gallery
Brooklyn, NYC
::: June 6th, 2009
Conflux City
Brooklyn, NYC
:::September 20th, 2009
My New Book
Learn more about my hardcover book of drawings or pre-order today.
