Tamara Henderson

Born 1982 New Brunswick, Cana­da
Lives and works in Can­ber­ra, Australia

Tama­ra Henderson’s process of cre­ation devel­ops its own mythol­o­gy out of an ongo­ing prac­tice of writ­ing, draw­ing, and mak­ing nota­tions of every­day objects. She reg­is­ters pat­terns in objects and atmos­pher­ic phe­nom­e­na and logs their appear­ance in dreams to expand con­ven­tion­al reg­is­ters of con­scious­ness. Her process of tap­ping into dreams con­nects to Sur­re­al­ist tra­di­tions; she care­ful­ly records what she expe­ri­ences 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 col­lects objects from var­i­ous sources, includ­ing found and recy­cled items and gifts gath­ered through­out her trav­els, and assem­bles them into large-scale instal­la­tions. These expan­sive envi­ron­ments encom­pass a vast vocab­u­lary of art and craft prac­tices and mate­ri­als, includ­ing film, paint­ing, tex­tile, sculp­tures in glass, ceram­ic and bronze, draw­ing, sound, and performance.

Since relo­cat­ing to Aus­tralia, Henderson’s work has focused on the close obser­va­tion of micro­bi­ol­o­gy in com­post soil, and the chem­i­cal and insect dri­ven process­es of decom­po­si­tion and Earth­worm ecol­o­gy. Her most recent exhi­bi­tion, Green in the Grooves, Cam­den Art Cen­tre (2023) draws atten­tion to the often-unap­pre­ci­at­ed earth beneath our feet, the ground­ing of life on this planet.

Tama­ra Hen­der­son has under­tak­en impor­tant solo exhi­bi­tions through­out the world, most recent­ly includ­ing, Green in the Grooves, Cam­den Art Cen­tre, Lon­don (2023); Of Sea­sons End, Tate Mod­ern, Lon­don (2020); Womb Life, Rodeo, Piraeus (2019); Womb Life, Kun­st-Werke Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Berlin (2018); Sea­sons End: More Than Suit­cas­es, Dou­glas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2018); Sea­sons End: Out of Body, Oakville Gal­leries, Oakville (2017); Sea­sons End: Paint­ing Heal­er, RED­CAT, Los Ange­les (2016); and Sea­sons End, Glas­gow Inter­na­tion­al, Glas­gow (2016).

Recent group exhi­bi­tions include, Thin Skin, Monash Uni­ver­si­ty Muse­um of Art, Mel­bourne (2023); Though it’s dark, still I sing, 34^th Bien­al de São Paulo, São Paulo (2021); The Botan­i­cal Mind: Art, Mys­ti­cism and The Cos­mic Tree, Cam­den Art Cen­tre, Lon­don (2020); Part of the Labyrinth, GIB­CA 2019 Bien­ni­al, Gothen­burg (2019); Bien­ni­al of Mov­ing Images, OGR, Turin (2019); GIB­CA Bien­ni­al, Gothen­burg (2019); Bien­nale de l’ Image en Mou­ve­ment 2018, Cen­tre d’Art Con­tem­po­rain Genève, Gene­va (2018); Vir­ginia Woolf: An Exhi­bi­tion Inspired by her Writ­ings, Tate St Ives, Pal­lant House Chich­ester and The Fitzwilliam Muse­um, Cam­bridge, UK (2018); Insom­nia, Bon­niers Kon­sthall, Stock­holm (2016); Life Itself, Mod­er­na Museet, Stock­holm (2016); The Hyp­not­ic Show, Toron­to Kun­stvere­in, Toron­to (2014); and dOCUMENTA(13), Kas­sel (2012).

Tama­ra Henderson’s works are held in the per­ma­nent pub­lic col­lec­tions of Tate, UK; Van­cou­ver Art Gallery, Cana­da; Mod­er­na Museet, Stock­holm, Swe­den; Mag­a­sin III, Stock­holm, Swe­den; Wal­ter Phillips Gallery Per­ma­nent Col­lec­tion, Banff Cen­tre for Arts and Cre­ativ­i­ty, Cana­da; Art Gallery of Ontario, Cana­da; and The Hunter­ian, Glas­gow, Scotland.