Jordana Henry.
After finishing a printmaking major at art school in Lismore in 2012. Jordana now works and lives in the elemental north east coast of NSW (Byron Bay). Jordana’s works naturally take on the form of abstraction as she uses predominantly oils to create marks that best explore notions of landscape, shape, figure, emotion and colour.
She has exhibited in both solo and group capacities in galleries throughout Australia.
Solo Exhibition - ‘Bad Reception’
We are so thrilled to welcome Jordana Henry back to the gallery! This will be Jordana's 2nd solo exhibition at HAKE HOUSE and our first solo exhibition to open the year on 22nd February. Please see below for further information and the online catalogue.
2025 - 'Bad Reception'
ON VIEW : Saturday, 22nd February - Sunday, 9th March 2025
SHOW NOTES :
Bad Reception is an exploration of distortion, interference, and the spaces between clarity and confusion. These abstract oil paintings embody the static, glitches, and lost signals both literal and emotional-that define contemporary existence. In a world oversaturated with information, connection is often disrupted. Messages are misheard, images are pixelated, and meaning is fractured. Through layered textures, erratic brushwork, and shifting color fields, this series captures the tension between presence and absence, signal and noise. The paintings in Bad Reception reflect the way we navigate uncertainty, seeking understanding through the haze. Some forms emerge, others dissolve just like memories, conversations, and fleeting moments of clarity. Here, distortion isn't just an obstacle; it's a language of its own.
Words by Jordana Henry
‘Bad Reception’ by Jordana Henry
VIDEOGRAPHY - Rolling Dawn Films
Available Works
2023 - Tones and Totems
PREVIOUS SOLO EXHIBITION 2023
“ A work of art is a confession” - Albert Camus
If one is to believe Camus then Jordana Henry’s canvas’ are her personal diaries.
Abstracted paintings full of sensuality, suggestive shapes, intense colour, visceral and mysterious. Henry’s paintings are symbolic narratives, a different kind of self portrait, carefully hidden meanings of the complexities of the artists’ past, present and future.
Large vessel like wombs are a recurring theme, shapes seem to pulsate, gestating figures with halos emerge and take centre stage. We see the artist returning to earlier work, strengthening her symbolic language, creating her own personal cosmology that speaks of, the beginnings of life, incubating, spawning, elemental and silent, reminiscent of all creation myths.
The paintings are poetically simple, presenting as an analogous Haiku, revealing a limited structural image. Henry’s purposely ambiguous figures are inviting the viewer to explore viscerally the unexplainable, evocating a monastic simplicity where (we) witness an almost reverential ritual translating into paintings of visual poetry.
The size of the works reflects the immensity and power of their central totems - spacial placement and colour are the major characters. The artists use of oils is as much a part of the work as the symbolic subjects. Days and weeks of painting and repainting, slowly layering the colour, laboriously and carefully coating the canvas. The act of painting became a psychological, physical and philosophical practice. The patience in which the artist had to fully submit to, the distant perspective that was required to stay present in order for the technical art of painting oils required for the colour to stay true and not become a muddy mess, the strength needed for the body to meet the canvas continuously for months. The act of painting another confession.
What is the artist confessing? Deep feelings of being a woman - transformation, transmutation, strength, mystery and poetry. Am I a saint or sinner? am I seductive or productive? I am all of this and more. This body of work sees the artist delicately navigating the complexities of womanhood, laying bare her secret confessions without divulging a single fact. Henry’s power is in the suggestion and mystery of these opaque totems.
Written by - Anna-Karina Elias
