Details
Kevin Henderson has primarily used actions and performances to express and explore ideas within his artistic practice, using the writings of authors and artists as starting points for ideas, or frameworks to which ideas can be related.
For this exhibition at the MAC he has focused on a series of new painterly works.
Henderson has commented on this new work, saying:
“I live in a small rural farming community in Perthshire, today’s equivalent to the one described by Lewis Grassic Gibbon in ‘Sunset Song’ and the kind of place where a new village notice board comes about through the generosity of an individual who, on their death, leaves a small legacy to the community.
From inside, looking towards the same hill, the windowsill is a portrait of sorts - a pot plant with orange blossoms and waxy green leaves, a wine decanter, lavender washing-up liquid, a steel rule, pieces of a broken soup bowl, an empty glass jar stained with watercolour paint, mouthwash, a teapot cosy, a bar of soap in a plastic dish, a water bottle of the kind used by cyclists.
Is this landscape, the community, the still life, the subject of my paintings? Is this what they are about?
No, not really, but they influence the way I see and understand the world and the paintings will often start here, with something seen or remembered, observed, gifted or read. Ultimately, the act of making a painting takes place in time, in place, in culture, and in the imagination. Just how an individual piece comes to its final shape is the result of many things, some of which are outwith language.”
