Today we are taking a leap into the wonderful world of Edward Henry! As an artist working in Project Ability’s Aspire programme for more than 20 years, Edward is one of the personalities that make Project Ability the positive and inspirational place it is. In addition to being an integral member of our studios, Edward invigilates in the gallery and shop when we are open and is always a popular artist in our exhibition calendar.
Edward Henry has a fascination with the natural world – places he’s never been, animals he’s never seen – Edward takes these creatures and places and makes them his own by recreating them in his honest, straightforward way. He is a curious artist who enjoys seeing new perspectives of the world. He has been as prolific during Lockdown as he normally is in the studio, we’ve been pleased to see. We asked Edward to post some of his artwork to us for exhibition and we’ve been so impressed with the pieces he’s sent us. Since working at home during Lockdown, we can see some new developments in his work, for example the mixing of mediums such as paint and pencil, and also a lot more coloured pens and pencils. We appreciate it is hard for artists to find the space at home to work with easels and palettes, canvases and big brushes – and it is so good to see everyone improvising and trying new things.
Drawing can take on a more relaxed feel when happening at home instead of the studio. Mark making in front of the television, or while sat at the kitchen table feels less like creating a masterpiece and more like making a sketch or doodle. And sometimes our best masterpieces start out as doodles! There is an ease and lack of time restraint in these pieces, and we think his practice has seen great developments in the last year. We can’t wait to see how this will all translate onto the canvas once we are back in the studio again.
In addition to the many wildlife mixed media drawings, Edward has been working towards taking part in the upcoming 100 Portraits project. We’ve had a glimpse of some of these and, as we saw with Marina Devlin last week, this portrait exhibition is going to be amazing. Here is a little look at a self portrait Edward was working on recently…
And below is a photograph pulled out of the archive from 2018 – Edward on the left and Cameron Morgan on the right. Good times!! We can’t wait to see everyone again!
We’ve selected a few of Edward’s most recent wildlife drawings to show in the gallery below. These are all sketchbook artworks in various mediums and all have been made in the last year. We expect to see some of them in our online shop when we reopen, they are all just so lovely!
