Stew Henderson
Brockman Gallery • Brunswick, ME • frankbrockmangallery.com • October 5–26, 2019
Stew Henderson’s Patent series is derived from mechanical drawings in patent books that belonged to his grandfather Cornelius “Corny” Zabriskie, a patent lawyer in New York City. Drawn to the detailed lines and what he calls the “different calligraphy” used by the draftsmen in Corny’s office, Henderson has produced collages, drawings, paintings and wood burnings over the past several years that highlight the intrinsic aesthetic appeal of these designs—“Art as Invention as Art” as the title of the show puts it.
Stew Henderson, Flying Hinges, 2019, ink on gesso over acrylic on canvas over panel, 44 x 44”. Photo: Stew Henderson.
In the ink-on-Mylar and collage Catch and Release (2018) Henderson brings a precise hand worthy of those masters of manipulation, Max Ernst and Joseph Cornell. Among an assortment of drafted designs for vintage items of unknown usage (like those “What is this object?” queries in newspapers) he has placed a fish and butterfly as if to show how nature is essentially mechanical. Indeed, the fish illustration features a cutaway diagram of its insides.
Crusher (2017) presents a profusion of intricate, interconnected linear constructs painted in ink on a piece of Dacron sailcloth complete with grommets and rope. By contrast, Cufflink, also 2017, is simple in concept: a humble geometric-abstract accessory labeled “Fig. 1” floating in a wash of pinkish-red pearlescent acrylic.
Other works in the show recall the mechanistic inventions of Francis Picabia. Combine (2017) pairs two small near-square ink-on-gessoed panels, the left one consisting of a scattering of upside-down vintage letters, the right one, designs for four different inventions. It’s a Dada pas de deux.
The most recent piece on view, Flying Hinges (2019) features black ink renderings of three hinges, shown in flight, as it were, alongside a design for a folding lawn chair. These objects are superimposed on a colorful abstract-geometric pattern that takes up the lower part of the composition—a kind of Albers accent.
Rounding out the show is Spare Parts (2018) a group of 20 or so small wood burnings. Here Henderson focuses on details of the patent designs—tool and dye configurations, interlocking elements, a figure number without a figure. The Northport, Maine, artist and senior preparator at the Colby College Museum of Art proves himself as inventive as his inspiring sources.