NYAB Event - Maxine Henryson “From Ujjayi’s Journey”

Maxine Henryson “From Ujjayi’s Journey”

A.I.R. Gallery

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A.I.R. Gallery presents the exhibition Maxine Henryson: from Ujjayi’s Journey.

from Ujjayi’s Journey consists of works from a twelve-year project, begun in 1996, which culminated in the book Ujjayi’s Journey, published by Kehrer in 2012. Eighteen photographs of varying sizes allow a glimpse into the very personal and poetic universe of the artist.

Ujjayi means “victorious breath” in Sanskrit. Henryson photographed Ujjayi’s Journey during five trips to India between 1996 and 2008. The spiritual aspect of Indian culture was of particular interest to her, especially the Mahadevi (Great Goddess), who can manifest herself in multiple forms, and Darsan, the process of worship whereby the devotee views the deity and the deity views the devotee. In Ujjayi’s Journey the artist explores religious coexistence, rituals, the female worlds, and nature. She tells the story of her search for the divine-as-feminine within India’s contemporary culture, linking the
present to the past.

In her exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery, Henryson expands the scope of her work, including new large-scale photographs printed on inkjet paper in archival inks; they are objects of remarkable color, physicality, and intensity. Earlier works have been integrated into the project, and new juxtapositions create new meaning. Playing with composition, color, scale, and height, Henryson has created an installation that evokes the “experiential memory” of place. The works are arranged in an elliptical sequence to form a cohesive visual poem.

Henryson oft en uses blur in her work, giving her subjects a strong symbolic power. The result is reminiscent of the slightly nostalgic and blurry paintings of Gerhard Richter. Curator Mario Kramer has said of the work:

Landscapes, interiors, street scenery, still life, even static architecture is lent a sense of motion. Space and time are extended, compositional elements and figures blur until they appear to form a new reality. Despite the ever-changing themes of mood, light and culture, Maxine Henryson’s work is highly coherent and conceptual. The vocabulary of these very precisely composed images is reduced and focused on the essential—nothing is added. These color photographs impress us with their enormous variety of nuance as well as a calm contemplative expressiveness.

This is Maxine Henryson’s first solo show at AIR Gallery. She has had six solo exhibitions. Henryson’s monographs are Ujjayai’s Journey (Kehrer, 2012), Red Leaves and Golden Curtains (Kehrer, 2007) and Presence (Artist Publications, 2003). Selected group exhibitions include Gallery Espace, New Delhi (Marvelous Reality/Lo Real Maravilloso), Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York (Lives of the Hudson), Unscharf (out of focus), a er Gerhard Richter at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg Germany and O.K. Harris Gallery, New York (Illuminators).

[Image: Maxine Henryson, Refraction, Vrindavan, India 2008, Archival pigment print, 54” x 35”]