Queensland
Glen Henderson
Glen Henderson is a contemporary artist who often works in collaboration with architects, scientists and technology professionals. Henderson's continuing involvement in contemporary arts practice is as visual artist, designer, curator. Supported by an Arts Queensland Grant, a monograph of ten years practice Glen Henderson 1996-2006 provides an overview of her practice from the completion of her Masters degree in 1996.
Distilling perception and rigorous process clearly mark Glen Henderson’s work Shimmer. Her enigmatic images shimmer with light. They flicker and quiver. Her luminous and intricate abstractions have evolved from scientific research into the structure of brain cells and the mystery of nerve cell function.
Henderson seduces the viewer, often by denying complete visual access. Her use of translucent materials that distort and formalise into subtle pattern reflects the spatial and structural coherence and constant movement of cell life. Each image refers to a cellular origin, the unifying element being the cube and subtle hexagonal patterning threading through the work.
Henderson offers a poignant analogy for artistic process based on intuitive scientific method. She states, “Long before being aware of the potential of a new idea, a scientist may ‘feel’ it in ways that are difficult or impossible to articulate. These feelings are like very deep and sensitive probes, reaching into the unknown while the intellect ultimately makes possible a more detailed perception of what these probes have touched on.” Her work embodies this same approach, a process of intuitive and conscious noticing, resulting in rare and distilled images of flickering beauty.
Judy Anderson, 2007
Science and architecture are barometers of a changing world. What interested me in the Synapsis project was finding ways to allow art to provide links. Scientists new discoveries are forming a continuing expansion of knowledge. Architects are taking complex new ideas and then presenting them in a space we are inhabiting. In the Synapsis photographic works I presented the scientific cells as fused within the body and introduced the body to activate the space within the architectural cell.
