Artist: Tamara Henderson
Exhibition title: Seasons End: Out of Body
Venue: Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada
Date: September 24 – December 30, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, Oakville Galleries
In her writing, 16mm film, sculpture, painting, and installation, Tamara Henderson is concerned with altering everyday objects in fantastical and intuitive ways, often with a reference to dreams, fairy tales, the spiritual realm, and the natural world.
At Oakville Galleries, Henderson will be showing a new installation that marks a major transition in her work. Developed on a residency in Scotland in 2015, Seasons End is an itinerant, multi-part installation that has taken place at Glasgow International, REDCAT in Los Angeles, and most recently as a choreographed performance in The Serpentine Galleries’ 2017 architectural pavilion.
On its final stop in Oakville, Out of Body expands on these previous presentations, bringing together an assortment of objects and materials collected by the artist on her recent travels. These range from fabrics bought in Athens and dyed with plants gathered on a Greek island to objects crafted from the Bay of Fundy mudflats in Nova Scotia.
At the centre of the installation is a cast of human-like figures robed in colourful, embroidered costumes and wearing hand-made shoes. With a makeshift vehicle and passports at hand, they appear poised to traverse borders, be they physical or spiritual, like a crowd of spectral bodies who have made the ultimate transition from one world into another. Henderson’s voyagers weave together an intensely personal story of travel between countries and states of being, of material alchemy and transformation, and of slipping between worlds, particularly from the world of matter and flesh to one that is “out of body.”
Produced by REDCAT and Glasgow International with support from Oakville Galleries, Serpentine Galleries, and Rodeo Gallery. The artist wishes to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Costumes designed and produced with Aude Levere. Sound design by Dan Riley. With special thanks also to Jake Tilbury.
Tamara Henderson is an artist from Sackville, Canada, currently based in London, the U.K. She has held recent solo exhibitions at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver (2016); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2015); Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway; Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2014); Walter Philips Gallery, Banff, and Kunstverein Nurnberg (2013). Selected group exhibitions include: Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Glasgow International, Glasgow; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Moderna Museet, Stockholm (all 2016); Performa13, New York (2013), and dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012).
