Frequently the woods are pink

May 27 – June 25, 2023

A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn

Opening reception: Thursday, June 1, from 6–8pm

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Frequently the woods are pink, a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Maxine Henryson, and the artist’s fourth exhibition at the gallery. Henryson introduces a new body of work that intermixes large and medium-sized photographs with non-linear narratives in small leporellos. By using variations of the blur—through depth of field, movement, and intentional soft focus—Henryson captures photographic imagery that favors feelings and memory over traditional representation. Her poetic, painterly approach celebrates light and color.

The exhibition title is taken from Emily Dickinson’s sonnet of the same name. Like Dickinson, Henryson concentrates on her garden and surrounding woods, celebrating nature’s interdependent splendor. Isolated in her Lincoln, Vermont cabin during the COVID pandemic, Henryson observed the plants, trees, and flowers of her surroundings, photographing their seasonal transformations.

Henryson’s photographs focus on the ephemeral and magnify the interplay between the flowers in her garden and wild vegetation. She creates images that are subjective and often abstract, with a sensibility of the sublime. These luminous images, such as Crabapple tree, “Love/Joy,” and Anemone, “tears/new beginnings,” can be seen as metaphors, a form of meditation where the images are more atmospheric than descriptive, encouraging the viewer to consider the very act of looking. Similarly, in the leporellos A Dream of Gardens and To be a Flower is profound Responsibility, the viewer is taken on a visual journey through the natural world.

The shift in scale from the large prints to the intimate leporellos allows the viewer multiple readings of the same scenes and the opportunity to question the perceptual aspects of the photograph. In Frequently the woods are pink, Henryson’s poetic, often fragmented images lyrically synthesize abstract with documentary, real with imagined, and everyday with extraordinary.

During the exhibition, Maxine Henryson and Lauren Simkin Berke will host a Pop Up Artist Book Fair at A.I.R. Gallery on Saturday, June 10, from 12:00pm until 7:00pm. Participants include A.I.R. artists Susan Bee, Lauren Simkin Berke, Yvette Drury Dubinsky, Maxine Henryson, Rosina Lardieri and Kay Turner, Joan Snitzer, Erica Stoller, Nancy Storrow, Jane Swavely, and others to be announced.