Golden Brown Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Golden Brown
Golden Brown 2022
Golden BrownBelynda HenryGolden Brown
Golden Brown2022
oil and wax on canvas
122 x 152 cm
SOLD 
Summer Evening Shimmer Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Summer Evening Shimmer
Summer Evening Shimmer 2022
Summer Evening ShimmerBelynda HenrySummer Evening Shimmer
Summer Evening Shimmer2022
Oil and wax on canvas
152 x 122 cm
SOLD 
Pink Eucalyptus Reflecting Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Pink Eucalyptus Reflecting
Pink Eucalyptus Reflecting 2022
Pink Eucalyptus ReflectingBelynda HenryPink Eucalyptus Reflecting
Pink Eucalyptus Reflecting2022
stained pigments, oil and wax on raw canvas
168 x 138 cm
SOLD 
Cedar Lemon Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Cedar Lemon
Cedar Lemon 2022
Cedar LemonBelynda HenryCedar Lemon
Cedar Lemon2022
stained pigments, oil and wax on raw canvas
168 x 138 cm
SOLD 
Swept Away by the Soft Warm Breeze Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Swept Away by the Soft Warm Breeze
Swept Away by the Soft Warm Breeze 2022
Swept Away by the Soft Warm BreezeBelynda HenrySwept Away by the Soft Warm Breeze
Swept Away by the Soft Warm Breeze2022
oil and wax on canvas
122 x 122 cm
SOLD 
Expanding with the Light Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Expanding with the Light
Expanding with the Light 2022
Expanding with the LightBelynda HenryExpanding with the Light
Expanding with the Light2022
oil and wax on canvas
122 x 122 cm
SOLD 
Grey Gum with Summer Reflecting Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Grey Gum with Summer Reflecting
Grey Gum with Summer Reflecting 2022
Grey Gum with Summer ReflectingBelynda HenryGrey Gum with Summer Reflecting
Grey Gum with Summer Reflecting2022
Oil and wax on canvas
122 x 152 cm
$10,000  ENQUIRE
August XXII Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - August XXII
August XXII 2021
August XXIIBelynda HenryAugust XXII
August XXII2021
stained pigments, oil and wax on raw canvas
214 x 182 cm
$20,000  ENQUIRE
Summer Landscape with White Glow Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Summer Landscape with White Glow
Summer Landscape with White Glow 2022
Summer Landscape with White GlowBelynda HenrySummer Landscape with White Glow
Summer Landscape with White Glow2022
Oil and wax on canvas
122 x 122 cm
$9,000  ENQUIRE
Golden Pink End of the Day Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Golden Pink End of the Day
Golden Pink End of the Day 2022
Golden Pink End of the DayBelynda HenryGolden Pink End of the Day
Golden Pink End of the Day2022
Oil and wax on canvas
152 x 122 cm
SOLD 
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine II Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine II
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine II 2022
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine IIBelynda HenryCreek Bed with Midday Sunshine II
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine II2022
oil and wax on canvas
101 x 101 cm
SOLD 
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine I Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine I
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine I 2022
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine IBelynda HenryCreek Bed with Midday Sunshine I
Creek Bed with Midday Sunshine I2022
oil and wax on canvas
101 x 101 cm
SOLD 
Sunburnt Landscape Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Sunburnt Landscape
Sunburnt Landscape 2022
Sunburnt LandscapeBelynda HenrySunburnt Landscape
Sunburnt Landscape2022
oil and wax on canvas
122 x 122 cm
SOLD 
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022
Installation view 'Further Afield' Belynda Henry Belynda Henry - Installation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield' 2022
Installation view 'Further Afield'Belynda HenryInstallation view 'Further Afield'
Installation view 'Further Afield'2022

The physical act of painting is the final outpouring of our personal observations, thoughts, experiences, life. A realisation best known through a kind of summary, a distillation. What we dream can never materialise as the subconscious has no form. The artistic process begins with the flickering of the imagination - thoughts that seem as fragile as gossamer gradually reveal themselves as a strong narrative. Continual painting for over thirty years has gifted me a backlog of imagery that plays within, it comes through my system and reveals itself again.

‘Further Afield' looks to places or areas other than those nearest or most obvious to me. To go further afield is to remove myself from the comfort zone, referring to not only the physical landscape but also the mindscape. In the last few years I came to embrace the act of taking an ingredient from the place I find myself standing in. I wondered, how can I capture this moment in time and form a bond to the earth, a connection of strength and depth?

After researching the soak-stain technique of New York’s Helen Frankenthaler, I found a passage to take my passion for watercolour painting and transform it onto canvas in a similar way that paralleled with my watercolours. Every work in this show was born while I was embedded in a particular landscape. Dragging canvases through muddy dam water and a mineral rich creek allowed pigments to penetrate the surface. Microscopic particles of the earth's pigments became captured into a creation forever. This raw under-being was then overstained with brighter pigments, breathing in more colour.

The early stage, that first session of a work, informs the direction the painting will eventually take. The first layer/imagery is always the most explosive and extremely physical. Cathartic yet meditative. The second and further layers of oil and wax at once juxtapose with the underlying forms and softer shape while enhancing and bringing forth the landscape lines that I have sought out.

The dance with a painting is very personal and emotive, it can last for weeks or months but finally the act concludes and I can present an exhibition that is a reflection of a segment of life I lived.

Sidney Nolan once said - "It's a curious sort of life in which you dream one image and paint another."

Belynda Henry May 2022

Belynda Henry 'Further Afield'

As far back as Belynda Henry can remember, the natural landscape has served as her major focus and inspiration. As a young arts student, her journals were filled with the shapes and forms of her environment - pared back to capture the essence of the natural world. Early in her career these sketches were realised in flat, almost two dimensional sculptural works, though painting always beckoned.

Working from her home in a quiet valley in Northern New South Wales, Henry’s practice incorporates plein air and studio-based painting, as well as a rugged process of drenching her canvases in freshwater that recalls American artist Helen Frankenthaler’s (1928-2011) ‘soak-stain technique’. Henry drags her unstretched canvases through the creek that runs through her property, before laying them out on the grass or concrete causeway to dry as she works in watercolour and pigment to capture her first impressions of the landscape. No longer damp, the canvases are returned to the studio and stretched so that Henry can continue to build composition, layering oil paint and wax as she reinterprets the landscape through a veil of memory and personal contemplation. The lack of illusionistic space enhances the textures and tonal colours in the work, alluding to vast sweeping treelines, gullies and waterways, to capture the atmosphere and energy of being immersed in, and embraced by nature.

Belynda Henry is an alumna of the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), University of Sydney, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1993. A finalist in multiple art awards including the Archibald Prize (2016), the Wynne Prize (2016, 2015, 2013) and the Paddington Art Prize (2018, 2017), she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally.

Carrie McCarthy 2022

Belynda Henry

Born 1973, Sydney

EDUCATION

1993

  • Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022

  • 'Further Afield', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
  • 'New Works', (online) Australian Galleries

2021

  • ‘New Works’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
  • 'Belynda Henry', Woollahra Gallery, Redleaf, Sydney
  • 'Clean Slate', Gruin Gallery, Los Angeles

2020

  • ‘To Paint is to Love’, Australian Galleries
  • ‘The Space Between’, Olsen Gruin, New York

2019

  • 'Waterfalls and Waterholes’, Australian Galleries, Sydney
  • ‘Reflections’, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne

2018

  • 'Landscape Lines', Australian Galleries, Sydney

2017

  • 'Wanderer', Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne

2016

  • 'Distance', Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne
  • 'Living Colour', Olsen Irwin Works on Paper, Small Paintings and Sculpture, Sydney

2014

  • ‘Jigsaw’, Anthea Polson Art, Main Beach, QLD

2012

  • ‘Colour My World – New Sculptures and Paintings’, Richard Martin Art, Sydney

2010

  • 'Overview’, Richard Martin Art, Sydney

2007

  • ‘Shimmer’, Greenhill Galleries, Perth
  • ‘Shadows of Nature’, Richard Martin Art, Sydney

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020

  • ‘Sydney Contemporary Presents 2020’, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair (online)
  • ‘Navigating the line’ (online exhibition), Australian Galleries

2019

  • ‘Australian Galleries: The Purves Family Business. The First Four Decades’, Book Launch and Group Exhibition, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
  • Graeme Drendel and Belynda Henry, 3:33 Art Projects, Clayton Utz, Melbourne

2018

  • ‘A Painted Landscape’, Special Group Studios, Sydney
  • ‘AWI 95TH Annual Exhibition’, Juniper Hall, Sydney
  • Paddington Art Prize (Finalist), Marlene Antico Fine Art, Sydney
  • Tattersall’s Club Prize (Finalist), Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane

2017

  • Paddington Art Prize (Finalist), Marlene Antico Fine Art, Sydney

2016

  • Archibald Prize (Finalist), Art Gallery of New South Wales
  • Wynne Prize (Finalist), Art Gallery of New South Wales
  • Gympie Regional Gallery, QLD

2015

  • ‘Summer Christmas Show’, Olsen Irwin Sydney
  • Wynne Prize (Finalist), Art Gallery of New South Wales

2013

  • Wynne Prize (Finalist), Art Gallery of New South Wales

AWARDS

2004

  • Highly Commended, Open Selection, Wyong Art Show, NSW

2003

  • First Prize, Open Award, Wyong Art Show, NSW

2002

  • First Prize, Art scrawl, Landscape Award, Pokolbin, NSW

2000

  • Highly Commended, Sculpture Section, Wyong Festival of the Arts, NSW

COLLECTIONS

  • Elcom Credit Union, Sydney
  • P & O Resorts; Lizard Island, Bedarra Island
  • Private Collections in America, Isle of White, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Taipei

May 7, 2020

Belynda Henry - Finalist in the Kings School Art Prize

Congratulations to Belynda Henry who has been selected as finalist in 2020 King’s School Art Prize.

Now in its 26th year, The King’s School Art Prize has been awarded to some of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. The $20,000 acquisitive award is presented to the artist judged the best contemporary artwork, created by an artist resident in Australia. Entry is by invitation only, and the finalists are selected by an appointed Art Prize panel.

Belynda has been painting landscapes for over 20 years. Exhibiting continuously with over 30 solo shows to her name. Living at the end of a long lush valley on the Central Coast, New South Wales, which she drives through daily, she is constantly and automatically gathering views, flashes of moments and imagery. Photographing the landscape and making small sketches are also part of her daily practice. Forever seeking out new images, compositions and colours to use in new works.

READ MORE HERE

Long distance (Mulloon Creek) 2020
oil and wax on canvas
112 x 167 cm

April 30, 2018

Belynda Henry - Paddington Art Prize Finalist

Congratulations to Belynda Henry who is a finalist in the 2018 Paddington Art Prize with her work 'A Capricious Landscape'.

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape. Established in 2004 by Arts Patron, Marlene Antico OAM, this National prize takes its place among the country’s most lucrative and highly coveted painting prizes.

The prize encourages the interpretation of the landscape as a significant contemporary genre, its long tradition in Australian painting as a key contributor to our national ethos, and is a positive initiative in private patronage of the arts in Australia.

Painting the landscape is an ever changing process. “Capricious landscape” is attempting to capture the ever changing mood, the impulsive behaviour and the unpredictable beauty of Australia. - Belynda Henry

READ MORE HERE

A Capricious Landscape 2018
101 x 122cm
oil on canvas

April 30, 2017

Belynda Henry - Paddington Art Prize Finalist

Congratulations to Belynda Henry who is a finalist in the 2017 Paddington Art Prize with her work 'The River Came To Me And It Took It All Away II'.

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape. Established in 2004 by Arts Patron, Marlene Antico OAM, this National prize takes its place among the country’s most lucrative and highly coveted painting prizes.

The prize encourages the interpretation of the landscape as a significant contemporary genre, its long tradition in Australian painting as a key contributor to our national ethos, and is a positive initiative in private patronage of the arts in Australia.

READ MORE HERE

The River Came To Me And It Took It All Away II 2017
Gouache, water colour and pastel on Aqua Lana 640 gsm paper
152 x 105cm

May 7, 2016

Belynda Henry - Finalist in the Archibald Art Prize

Congratulations to Belynda Henry who is a finalist in the 2016 Archibald Art Prize.

The Archibald Prize is awarded annually to the best portrait, 'preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia’.

Henry painted Louise Olsen co-founded Dinosaur Designs in 1985. She is a creative director and designer at the company with her partner Stephen Ormandy and the daughter of artists John Olsen and Valerie Strong.

Henry says ‘I met Valerie over 25 years ago through a series of evening painting classes. Through Valerie, I was introduced to the work of John Olsen. Both have inspired me greatly as an artist. Watching from afar as Louise co-created Dinosaur Designs, I always felt a link to her even though I didn’t know her.'

READ MORE HERE

Louise Olsen, a beautiful summary
acrylic and pastel on polyester canvas
157 x 116 cm

May 7, 2016

Belynda Henry - Finalist in the Wynne Prize

The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’. Congratulations to Belynda Henry who is a finalist in the 2016 Wynne Art Prize.

Henry has a fascination with the Australian landscape which is the main inspiration for her work. Living at the end of a secluded valley on the NSW Central Coast, Henry is always subconsciously gathering the natural shapes, flashes of colour and composition of the mountains and trees that surround her.

READ MORE HERE

Islands Five 2016
acrylic and pastel on polyester canvas
218 x 171.5 cm

BELYNDA HENRY 'TALKING WITH PAINTERS'
BELYNDA HENRY IN THE DAINTREE
BELYNDA HENRY

22 May 2024 – 11 June 2024
BELYNDA HENRY

17 May 2022 – 4 June 2022
Belynda Henry ‘Further Afield’