Bridget

 Henry

Bridget Henry creates large, narrative reduction woodblock prints with poignant emotive themes.  Her images are boldly illustrative, combining religious, spiritual, and personal elements into exciting dynamic compositions.  The work is colorful, with a slightly pastel, noticeably warm palette tending towards vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds.  Her imagery is largely figurative, and often autobiographical, seeking to capture a moment, a feeling, or an acquaintance from her life.  

Bridget's line work is rough, expressive, and aesthetically pleasing.  Her imagery is flat and iconic, with each work focused on expressive line and color, and on creating an emotional impact, rather than on carefully rendered detail or realism.

 Many of Bridget’s images are about love and personal relationships.  "Fruit and Fish", a pleasing and thoughtful meditation on the relationship between man and woman, is such a work.  The piece is composed with a spiral structure that reminds the viewer of the balance of yin and yang, and causes the eye to constantly roam the image.  The red pomegranate and blue school of fish are good examples of Bridget's use of natural imagery to symbolize a deeper meaning, in this case symbolizing male and female, sperm and egg, aspects of human sexuality that make us different and at the same time unite us.

Bridget experiments in other media as well, and has a strong interest in shadow boxes and found object constructions similar to the post-surrealist assemblage work of Joseph Cornell.  "Unfertilized", pictured here, reveals a mystery.  While closed, only a hint of a green orb can be seen through a small opening in the door of the rustic wooden cabinet.  When opened, a woman is revealed in the personal act of discovering an egg inside her.

"Luck of the Draw" was conceived by Bridget and her boyfriend Chip as a cooperative sketch created on a road trip. It is a celebration of their relationship, and is also derivative of characters from Chinese Horoscopes. The image immediately reminded me of the classic national symbols of Mexico, the rattlesnake and the eagle.  Like her Catholic references, the image makes use of familiar icons to tell a personal story.  The end result is an image which evokes the power and meaning of well established symbols to add strength and emotional impact to the work. 

"Relic"

Relic was started as a lithograph, then put aside for a time while Bridget explored other work.  The piece was completed as a woodblock, the final layers of ink printed over the original lithograph.  The result is one of Bridget's most intense, and in my opinion most successful works.  The piece was inspired by the story of Joan of Arc by Leonard Cohan.  The relic referred to in the title is the heart of the saint, which according to legend survived her immolation at the stake because of its purity.  The heart was removed from the ashes, and sold by the priests responsible for her death as a holy relic. 

Bridget's work was displayed for the show along the length of the hand painted parquet entry hall of her picturesque seaside home north of the city. The building is a converted migrant worker's mess hall built in the 1940s.  A short distance away in a converted machine shop from the same era is the shared studio of ceramist Carl Baker and sculptor Marilyn Kuksht, who is also covered in this article.  The location is inspirational, nestled beside Highway 1 between the rolling foothills and the sea.  From the house, a short walk along the railroad tracks and across picturesque farm fields leads to the rocky escarpments and hidden coves of Monterey Bay.

To read Bridget's artist's statement,

CLICK HERE