Kathleen Henderson–Bruised Fruit

Anglim/Trimble is pleased to present our latest exhibition Bruised Fruit by Kathleen Henderson.

Exhausted by the relentless unraveling of the American body politic over the past eight years, Kathleen Henderson’s new works in Bruised Fruit are born out of a sense of fraying, exposure to new levels of absurdity, plunging levels of discourse, and the normalization of political violence.

Henderson feels psychically bruised, but she is also darkly amused – the works are funny. Humor functions as her defense mechanism, an act of survival. Henderson’s goal is to keep going, to keep finding ways to laugh, dance and be in community with others. In Henderson’s words, “the world is ending so don’t be late!”

Why pineapples? Why shoes?

Pineapples are the perfect feature fruit, signaling wealth and hospitality, and at the same time, historic and deplorable land grabs. Still, Henderson finds them to be the most comical of fruits (except of course for the banana).

Shoes function as a powerful metaphor. To be in another person’s shoes, implies seeing something from another’s perspective. Empty shoes connote death and loss, and yet they are as common as the dirt on which we tread.

Henderson’s rounded, drooping, slumping figures stare out from amongst the shoes and fruits, as if to say, “See us, we are you.” Grounded and dirty, they sit or stand on the earth, dust made vital, mud beings whose origins are only too obvious. We can feel the pull of gravity on these figures, but even in their distorted forms, we can feel their humanity.

Please join us for a reception on Saturday, November 2 from 4-6 pm in our second-floor gallery at Minnesota Street Project.

Bruised Fruit is on view through Saturday, December 21.