Holly Hendry: Fatty Acids

About

Exploring the idiosyncrasies of the human body, Hendry’s sculptures and installations take formal inspiration from machinery and diagrammatic depictions of anatomy. Expanded casting methods are central to the artist’s process in which she uses an array of materials like steel, Jesmonite, silicone, ash, charcoal, lipstick, chewed gum, soap, foam, marble and grit. Her new work challenges our perception of the neat distinction between our physical bodies, emotions and mechanisation.

The exhibition sees Hendry draw upon the ethos of the Bauhaus school, where complex ideas are distilled to their intrinsic properties. The artist is particularly inspired by Oskar Schlemmer, whose dance and sculpture-costumes explore physical movement in relation to two-dimensional space and the notion of the human body as a mechanical object.

Involuntary processes such as yawning, sneezing, crying and ‘brain fog’ in Hendry’s work are rendered into simple, anthropomorphic forms. Transforming the gallery space into a larger-than-life production line, the artist shows feelings and thought processes being ‘manufactured’ and boxed up in an absurd attempt to rationalise the complexity of our bodies’ processes and outputs. This is demonstrated by the work ‘Overthinker’, 2021, which has tears dripping down one side in an expression of sadness, while the other side shows the inner workings of the emotion being generated by gears and cogs. The artist’s humorous approach is underlined by Hendry’s choice for a custard-yellow environment that draws upon sensory stimuli and the animated aesthetic of children’s television programmes from the 1990s.

Tongue-in-cheek and irrational, Hendry’s practice may at first glance present a reductive and ‘neatly packaged’ interpretation of how our body and mind work. However, the artist’s production line is not as efficient as it appears, with cut- outs revealing the ‘gubbins’ and detritus that lurk behind her works’ seemingly perfect exteriors.