The static noise of Michael T. Hensley
In 2003 the Mark Woolley Gallery (120 N.W. Ninth Ave., Suite 210) showed a group of paintings by Michael T. Hensley that set the artist firmly on a higher ground. This month the PSU grad returns to the gallery with a collection of work called Out of Order, and no doubt the expectations are high.
Small changes are in order and could be all he needs, as his dense scratching and scrawling were mesmerizing. His 2003 exhibition contained pieces mostly of a monotone color scheme. If the promotional postcard image is any indication of future moves, color and paint itself is now on the rise.
What Michael Hensley does more than anything is just draw, over and over again. He takes a flat surface and builds up many layers to create all kinds of traffic. Some of it is scratched, some of it is purely drawn or painted and some of it looks like it’s made with a printing process. All of it is a recording of the noise in his head.
“I go to the studio and vent,” Hensley said,”I scratch and dig and punch. Sometimes it’s very mood oriented. They’re all sort of messed up portraits of myself.”
Hensley offered a short and concise artist statement of what his process is like:
“draw
erase
sand
wash
scrub
dry
draw
sand
wash
crayon
scrape
brush
sand
draw (darker)
scratch
spot
cover
draw
scratch
drip
wash
sand
draw
erase
scratch
draw
go home.”
The work suggests that he is inventing his own language when he adds and subtracts. Hensley records all the wayward things, not just the important images of the day. When asked if he had ever ruined a beautiful image in this method of random production, he responded that the whole process was about letting go, from the beginning to the end.
Hensley’s big epiphany came from a wall in Italy where he vacationed. The plastered walls were heavily marked and covered in graffiti. The complex, rich yet randomly filled space resonated with his own direction.
When asked if Cy Twombly or Jean-Michel Basquiat meant anything to him, Hensley denied any connection. Both of these important artists appear to be all over the place in Hensley’s work, but I guess it is possible to paint in a vacuum, clearly inside your head. That is where most of the static noise is anyway.
