Stretched Thin: Visual Musings on Tension
We live in a world of flux. There鈥檚 a timorous buzz in the air,鈥� artist Stina Joy Henslee writes. 鈥淐OVID-19, the Trump era, the Internet age with its constant feeds of information, civil unrest, protests around racial injustice, rising rates of anxiety and panic among youth . . . We do our best to cope and block out the noise鈥攊n both healthy and not so healthy ways.鈥�
Henslee鈥檚 exhibition, Stretched Thin, represents a healthy way of coping with our current age of anxiety, an artist鈥檚 response to unsettled times. In 10 paintings using a variety of materials, she explores visual manifestations of both tension and its relief, excavating and exposing the undercurrent of apprehension in our everyday lives. The figures in her paintings are precariously balanced鈥� on tightropes, under water, in yoga poses, on suspension bridges鈥攚ith straining muscles, clenched jaws, and a palpable sense of disquiet appropriate to our time.
But Henslee鈥檚 work in Stretched Thin is not entirely bleak. Amidst her riotous figures and scenes of instability, viewers can find symbols of peace, humor, and ease: laughter and smiles, dancing, fluidity, weightlessness. These juxtapositions give the work a sense of narrative and development鈥攁s well as a sense of hope.
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We live in a world of flux. There鈥檚 a timorous buzz in the air,鈥� artist Stina Joy Henslee writes. 鈥淐OVID-19, the Trump era, the Internet age with its constant feeds of information, civil unrest, protests around racial injustice, rising rates of anxiety and panic among youth . . . We do our best to cope and block out the noise鈥攊n both healthy and not so healthy ways.鈥�
Henslee鈥檚 exhibition, Stretched Thin, represents a healthy way of coping with our current age of anxiety, an artist鈥檚 response to unsettled times. In 10 paintings using a variety of materials, she explores visual manifestations of both tension and its relief, excavating and exposing the undercurrent of apprehension in our everyday lives. The figures in her paintings are precariously balanced鈥� on tightropes, under water, in yoga poses, on suspension bridges鈥攚ith straining muscles, clenched jaws, and a palpable sense of disquiet appropriate to our time.
But Henslee鈥檚 work in Stretched Thin is not entirely bleak. Amidst her riotous figures and scenes of instability, viewers can find symbols of peace, humor, and ease: laughter and smiles, dancing, fluidity, weightlessness. These juxtapositions give the work a sense of narrative and development鈥攁s well as a sense of hope.
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