Tamara Henderson

Tamara Henderson collects objects and materials from various sources, including found and reused items, and reconfigures them as artworks that range from pieces of furniture to large-scale installations, often featuring hand-sewn and embroidered textiles. Henderson’s writing, sculptures, 16mm films and paintings often reference expanded states of mind that the artist translates in the work.

Previously she has created work inspired by a process of notating ideas while under hypnosis, and her films are often short magic realist passages in which transformation and decay are enacted, and images are personified. Henderson’s work often suggests an escape from conscious experience and an appearance of being orchestrated by spectral forces. Her process of tapping into dreams connects to Surrealist traditions; she carefully records what she experiences or imagines under various altered or unconscious states such as sleep or hypnosis, then translates the sketches, notes and recordings into films, sculptures or other works.

Henderson is an artist from Sackville, Canada who lives and works in an itinerant fashion. She studied at NSCAD and Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, and she holds a master’s from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Her work has been seen in group exhibitions at Glasgow International, UK (2016); Rodeo, Istanbul (2013); dOCUMENTA (2013), Kassel (2012); On the Tip of My Tongue, Magasin 3 (2013), and recent solo exhibitions include: Seasons End: Painting Healer at Rodeo, London (2017); Seasons End: Painting Healer at Redcat, Los Angeles (2016); Evergreen Minutes of the Phantom Figure at Nuremberg Kunstverein (2013).

Tamara has a piece of work in the Tate St Ives show ‘VIRGINIA WOOLF: an exhibition inspired by her writings’, 10th February to 29th April 2018.