Bio:
Rylee Henson is an artist and educator currently based in Lubbock, Texas. Her work focuses broadly on themes of personal and general memory, human motivation, mortality, and immortality.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Arts at Texas Tech University.
2020 - MFA Studio Art, Photography and Digital Media, University of Houston
2017 - BA Philosophy, Sam Houston State University
2017 - BA Film Production, Sam Houston State University
Statement:
I was born on the move, more specifically, in the passenger seat of a speeding Ford Windstar. Growing up, I remained on the move, traveling and relocating constantly with my family from one country to the next, settling down only briefly before leaving again. During this constant movement, I began to see how vast and differing the world and its people are. That said, I also quickly realized that no matter the difference in location, culture, or language, every human being must reconcile with death at some point. It is the foundational reality we lean on-we all must die. I am fascinated with how people understand and deal with the reality of their mortality.
Although my research practice and artmaking are not directly tied to one another, the two are in constant communication. They sustain each other. What I read and scribble on the notes application on my computer informs and inspires my artwork. Likewise, my artmaking helps me understand the research better and interact more substantially with the world around me. Whether through writing or visual/auditory creations, I am interested in those unanswerable questions. Questions that prompt further questions. Musings on mortality and motivation. How does the awareness of death impact our daily lives? Do we live despite our eventual demise, or does our eventual demise prompt our very understanding of life? I find solace in knowing that I will never and could never offer solidified answers to questions like these. Still, I might provide safe roads to travel—maps or invitations to navigate conversations about those things that make us most human.
My research practice stems from the realizations of my youth. Like the transient nature of my development, my work moves relatively freely in and out of varying points of inquiry. I am concerned with how death is defined and understood personally and communally. Along with this are those great questions related to personhood and the self. My research follows a long and often contradictory history of western philosophical writings on death and dying. I examine the similarly long history of denying death through attempts at immortality. I question the impact of ever-developing technology on attitudes toward mortality and immortality. My research is focused on death because I am invested in understanding life slightly better, and I believe that we must confront the end to do so.
I use video, audio, performance, and sculpture in my artmaking to explore temporality, motivation, contradiction, and memory. I see artmaking as a tool to initiate and deepen human connection. My video installation work is often purposefully slow, providing a direct and more tangible experience with the passage of time. I’m interested in the time manipulation that video requires both in the making and viewing. In my practice, I will also pull video and audio from internet archives, appropriating the footage to create slightly more narrative films. I am drawn to familiar and visceral materials in all of my work. I use what is most accessible to me to confront the hard-to-grasp and seemingly intangible ‘stuff.’
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