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Featured Artist: Eric J. Henderson

This month's profile is of Eric J. Henderson, a talented photographer I had the pleasure of meeting at Miami Art Basel in December 2006. The fortuitous find of a Brownie camera on 125th Street has allowed us to be enriched by this amazing artist. Enjoy!

How would you describe your work? What message if any are you sharing with viewers of your work?

I would say that the images are mostly nighttime long exposures and multiple exposures that result from diligent wanderings to find conversations between inanimate objects. I mean conversation in an almost literal way. For example, in "Slick City Street ...Shiny Sleep" (below) I really do sense a quiet animation among the elements there: the cars, the lights, the buildings. When I took this photo, I had to sit absolutely still for about 25 seconds, just counting, and it was very quiet...and very cold. It's also the experience of shooting itself that informs the title.

In that sense, I'm just participating in the conversation, often as intrigued passer-by. The messages to viewers can vary, and I do like to leave interpretations wide open for people because I have a one-sided (though still multi-dimensional) view of the scenes - because I was actually there. I like to hear people say what they think a scene conveys. I love working for an image thoroughly, searching through the viewfinder for extended stretches of time and trying various angles. Invariably, one view will appear that gives me the idea that the image will have some meaning and a durable aesthetic that can assume new meanings. Particularly, I like the multiple exposures that require me to shoot one part, wait until the next day and then shoot the next one. That waiting is always anxious - waiting to shoot and then waiting to develop. Here's one that I shot at a friend's house one night and then went out the next day in Red Hook to shoot a street on top of that first image.

How does your audience experience your work?

I recently opened an exhibition at Texas A&M University, Walk: A 1950 Kodak Brownie Finds Its Present-Day Soul. A really enjoyable part of that exhibition was a one-week residency during which I was scheduled to give talks to the public and to various high school and college classes in Art, Technology, and Education. The curators, Rosemary Kriegel-Hickman and Cory Arcak, were very thoughtful about reaching out beyond art-oriented circles. That allowed me to really consider how various audiences receive and respond to my work. It was cool that many could sense the "conversation" that I'm trying to achieve.

The camera itself also adds to the experience sometimes. In this case, since I always have the camera and I referred to it during my talks, I enjoyed seeing people travel the mental distance from a 1950 technology to today and try to reconcile that with the photos before them. When we finish, we all notice that the paradox is only a seeming one (capturing the new with the old).

That apparent paradox is central to my work as I seek to create a dialogue between the camera's nominal past and the present. The idea of paradox is furthered by the fact that the Brownie was the first camera to put photography in the hands of the masses. As such it can easily be overlooked in any artistic sense.

The bottom line, though, is that I don't shoot with it just because it is an old camera. I don't worship the past or the future. I shoot with the Brownie because it's the one that I found. Now, I've discovered a peculiarity that I would have a difficult time approximating with other types of cameras. In many, if not most cases, technology advances not because we've exhausted it, but rather because we want something new. There may be another one I use in the future, but, for now, I'm still finding the new with this camera.

Quite a bit of your work has involved children in the experience of picture taking. What do you hope they get out of this interaction with you and your camera?

What interests me most is that the children and I both dwell on the particular sensibilities that we only have access to when we are children. So, with their aesthetic and my direction, I hope, each time, to achieve art, not just documentary photos. I'm very up-front with the kids about that. In Brasil, for example, we were shooting just outside of Rio de Janeiro in an area that is full of stereotypical conversation heaped upon it by outside observers. Because I grew up in a stigmatized neighborhood, too, (Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas) I know that most of the stories are just that. I'm not being romantic. The neighborhood could definitely get "real" on you in a flash, but even in the most hard-up spots, trouble doesn't find you if you're not looking for it, involved in it, or walking a bit too ignorant of it. So, there are a lot of normal days that people don't really see - kids going to school, people buying groceries, people laughing....People. What the kids get then, is not any type of patronizing or charity work from me. They get to chase ideas. We're all just chasing ideas. That is what fires creativity.

For example in my own work, I have a recurring figure that is found in the crosswalks around the world. I love to compose with this figure, most often in multiple exposures:

Crosswalk Man Wins 100m Haberdash SoHo, NY, 2004

and they were taken up one by one New York, NY 2004

What have you heard back from the youth/children after the process is complete?

How about this: one student I taught to shoot actually won a scholarship in a major art competition for high school students. She had never taken pictures before and the joyful shock of taking a poignant photo put her back on the road to college. It turns out that she had been seriously neglecting her studies, not even going to school. Now, she's back in school and the scholarship will still be there for her when she graduates. In Morocco and Brasil, the children I worked with there told me, in so many words, that the photo shoot was a wake-up and that they wanted to keep shooting or begin exploring other creative activities.

You've been to Morocco and Brasil and travelled throughout the United States. What impact has this had on your photography?

Travelling - in or out of the country - really heightens my curiosity. When I was in business school (Thunderbird in Glendale AZ) I would meet, every once in a while, multi-lingual people who had travelled nearly the entire globe but seemed to have only gone from 4-star hotel to shopping to 4-star hotel...indeed, around the world. That world is intensely homogenized in our major centers. So, I never assume that just being in a place means anything except "I've been to that place," unless I get out, dig deep, wander, hold random conversations, meet people from many different areas. I do that here at home, every once in a while just getting on a train to Long Island, New Jersey, or up the Hudson River and jumping off at the first town with a funny name that I've never been to. I call it guerilla tourism and, man, it's always an eye-opener.

What would you like to share about work that you are presently creating? What is inspiring it or what inspires you generally?

I'm working on a couple of projects right now. First, I'm working on a project for the Studio Museum in Harlem. I'll have more info on that when the work is published. I'm also working on a series of night scenes that include portraits. This will be the first time that I take photos of people, but they will appear in abstract form, recognizable only to people who really know those subjects and could even identify them by their stances. Think of how you recognize someone close to you by something as little as a glance at a gait or a portion of that person's face. And I will continue with more explorations of abstract scenes from construction sites as in these examples below.

The Nonsense Between Earth and Sky Queens, NY, 2004

Queens in Mars Clothing... 2AM Queens, NY, 2004

Any exhibits planned in the next few months?

I have started talking with a gallery about a spring exhibit in the city. In the meantime, I 'I've just completed an interview as the first guest artist profiled for a magazine to launch in March, "What A Duck" a surfing, extreme sports, and lifestyle magazine launched by the people of Adrenalina.TV and geared for 20-year olds. It just happens that I'm also a surfer and skateboarder. I move around Manhattan on a dirtboard quite a bit, a dirtboard being a skateboard fitted with rubber off-road tires. One of my favorite runs is down Lexington from 110th to 59th. There are a couple of nice downhill stretches.

Anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Don't worry, I won't preach, but I sense that this camera is my witness for Jesus just because of the road it has put me on and the conversations it has sparked that I would not have had otherwise - all from $5 well spent at the daily makeshift bazaar at 125th and Park in Harlem.

Oh, and finally, a couple of recent images. No theme between the two of them. They just happen to involve mirrors. What I like about them is what went into making them. Each was the final frame on a roll of 12 shots. With just 12 shots a roll, I like being forced to really consider my images, and these two did take a bit of work, especially the Times Square shot as I had a hard time finding a steady spot for the camera. But, I like the work of the shot as much as the shot itself. That's why I do this.

Selfish to Find You New York City (Times Square), 2006

The Way Up Meets The Way Out Houston Hobby Airport, 2006

Eric's work can now be seen at Canvas and Stone Gallery in The Bradhurst at Striver's Row, Suite 2N through June 9. Stay tuned for more on his exhibition at the Studio Museum; and... in the meantime, feel free to contact him via email. And don't forget to check out Henderson's web site.

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