Monday, January 9, 2017

Giertz Gallery Presents "Home: Works by Alicia Henry"

Award-winning Parkland College Alumna Presents Solo Exhibit


Home: Works by Alicia Henry
Exhibit
: Monday, Feb. 13–Tuesday, March 28, Giertz Gallery
Reception: Thursday, Feb. 16, 5–7 p.m., with gallery talk by Henry at 6 p.m. and music by Nathaniel and Friends
Additional artist lecture: Henry, Thursday, Feb. 16, 1:15 p.m., Harold and Jean Miner Theatre

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A solo exhibition of artwork by award-winning Parkland College alumna Alicia Henry will feature at the college's Giertz Gallery starting Feb. 13.

"Home: Works by Alicia Henry" will run in the gallery through March 28. An artist's reception will be held Thursday, Feb. 16 from 5 to 7 p.m., with a gallery talk by Henry at 6 p.m. and music by Nathaniel and Friends. The same day, Henry will provide an additional lecture at 1:15 p.m. in Parkland’s Harold and Jean Miner Theatre.
 
The exhibition, lectures, and reception are free and open to the public, and the community is encouraged to attend.

Gallery Director Lisa Costello said Henry’s exhibit is a long-awaited event.

"We are delighted to have this Guggenheim Award-winning artist return home from Nashville to exhibit her work and share her experiences with our students and community," Costello remarked. "Hosting it this year, in celebration with Parkland College’s 50th anniversary, makes it an ideal time."

This exhibition includes work that explores issues of loss. Henry is interested in how cultural, gender, racial, and social differences affect both individual and group responses to loss. Using abstracted human figures, both in isolation or in interaction with others, Henry goes beyond mere representation of the figure and presents a psychological interpretation of her ideas.

Henry is an associate professor and the discipline coordinator in the Department of Arts and Language at Fisk. She received her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA at Yale University School of Art. In addition to attending Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, she has received numerous awards, grants, and residencies, including a Ford Foundation Fellowship; a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant; Art in General, MacDowell Art Colony, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown residencies; and, most recently, the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. Henry's works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and are held in private and public collections. 

[Image: Alicia Henry, Brown, Red, White, and Blue (detail), acrylic, cotton, linen, leather, wool, felt, fabric/synthetic blend, dye, thread, yarn, graphite, and colored pencil, dimensions variable, 2012–2015]