Maxine Henryson
lives and works in New York City and Vermont. A photographer and bookmaker, her work is about place, geographic space and the search for cultural interconnectivity. Her photographic practice draws from traditions including painting, film, performance, installation and sculpture. Henryson’s photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe and are in numerous private and public collections including the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT; the former Celanese Photography Collection, Frankfurt; the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Recent solo exhibitions include True Though Invented, A.I.R. Gallery, New York (2020), Contrapuntal, A.I.R. Gallery, New York (2017), Ujjayi’s Journey, A.I.R. Gallery, New York (2014), Calculated Coincidence, Kleinschmidt Fine Photographs, Wiesbaden (2014).
Selected group exhibitions include Flora/Fauna, The West Kortright Centre, East Meredith, NY (2021), Suffrage 100, Mercy Gallery, Loomis Chaffe, Conn.(2020), Women on the Line, Studio 44, Stockholm (2017), Cooperative Consciousness, A.I.R. artists at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2016–17), The Body in Review, ARC Gallery, Chicago (2015), Unscharf. Nach Gerhard Richter, Hamburger Kunsthalle (2011), as well as Lives of the Hudson, Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York (2010), and Marvelous Reality/Lo Real Maravilloso, Gallery Espace, New Delhi (2009).
She organized the virtual lecture series Expressions of Contemporary Feminist Artists and their Processes for A.I.R./Baturu (2021), and co-chaired A.I.R. at Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair (2021) and the Feminist and Queer Art Book Fair with Lauren Simkin Berke (2020).
She has taught photography professionally since 1975, most recently at the International Center of Photography, New York (1989-1997) and Bennington College (1996-2006). She studied sociology at Simmons College (B.S.) has a Master of Philosophy from the University of London, a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was awarded the Sam and Dusty Boynton Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center 2015, 2017, 2018. 2020. Her photography is the subject of three monographs: Ujjayi’s Journey (Kehrer, 2012), Red Leaves and Golden Curtains (Kehrer, 2007), and Presence (Artist Publications, 2003).
Maxine Henryson is represented by A.I.R. Gallery, New York.
Artists Statement
I explore cultures from around the world through the lens of color. In chance encounters, the extraordinary is made visible in the ordinary—an idol is transformed into a butterfly and a stretched sari becomes a magical orange veil. Hybrids of the abstract and the real, the painterly and the documentary, these works present a vision that exists as much in my imagination as in the real world.
My photographic works often present a sensual and poetic view of the seemingly everyday. I experiment with the limits and peculiarities of color film to produce luminous photographs saturated with intense color. Editing and sequencing are the mainstays of my process. I sequence images to create non-linear confluences that explore visual memory, religious coexistence, rituals, the female world and nature. Publishing is a significant part of my practice. In my books I experiment with different ways of producing and viewing photographs.
— Maxine Henryson