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art events & info

Alicia Henry - Mixed Media on Fabric

11/24/2009

Room 204 Educational Sciences Building
1025 W. Johnson Street
Madison, WI 53706
5:40 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Parking is available at Grainger Hall

All events are free and open to the public.

For this Tuesday Talk Colloquium, Alicia Henry will speak of her work using mixed media on fabric.

Henry creates installations consisting of groups -- "communities," says the artist -- of masks and figures made from paper and other materials, cut out into various shapes and layered together. Combining the engaging simplicity of folk art and the psychological presence of African ritual sculpture, these characters explore, in the artist's words, "traditions of play, death, and mourning in different cultures."

In 2002, she completed an installation for the Nashville International Airport based on the theme of "Home." This topic is explored through the definition of home for the individual and for a group. Henry also investigates whether or not people identify home as a physical location or something less tangible, such as a sense of security or the feeling of being nurtured.

In 2001, Henry received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which she used to travel in Africa. Her artist residency at New York City’s Art in General resulted in a solo exhibition entitled, "Family Portrait," in 2000. Recent solo shows include, "Four Corners," at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Cheekwood Museum of Art’s Temporary Contemporary. She has also participated in group shows at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville.

Alicia Henry received her B.F.A. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her M.F.A. degree from Yale University. Henry has received numerous grants and awards from various foundations including the Ford Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. She has had exhibitions at Cheekwood Museum, and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts among others. Henry is an associate professor of art at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Funding provided by the Brittingham Fund.

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