Henny Burnett

London, UK – Multimedia

Forget me Not, 2018

Cotton handkerchiefs, cyanotype, photopolymer and drypoint etching, stitching, nails and metal eyelets

100 x 100 x 5 cm

£2250

Forget me Not was commissioned for the exhibition Cicatrix Imprimé shown at Atelier Circulaire GalIery in Montreal. Cicatrix Imprimé was part of Cicatrix an international collaboration of six female artists commemorating WW1 running from 2014 to 2018.

Central to my practice are research, and an inductive process. I have worked on projects involving museum collections, archives and histories, uncovering human stories that enable a contemporary audience to connect; to both the work and the concepts behind it. My work reflects a fascination with the personal memorabilia we all gather, or collect in museums, and asks the audience to examine how we view such artefacts today. The process of collecting, cataloguing, documenting and displaying are all key elements in my working process resulting in outcomes that explore impermanence and memory, are rooted in the fabric of the home, yet are presented in an historical context. I work in a range of media that includes casting, installation, collage, assemblage, projections, and various photographic techniques.

Domestic Handbags, 1994/2020

Currently the work is cast in wax on glass shelves (will be cast in glass)

100 x 36 x 10cm

£3350 for 4 pieces

Domestic Handbags responds to these ideas as well as the phrase ‘Everything but the kitchen sink’ with the use of kitchen utensils and other domestic objects. The work further references advertisements found in 1950/60s women’s magazines.

London Walks

128cm x 30cm x 15cm

10 cast wax shoes, pressed flowers & grasses, light box.

£2900

This artwork has grown out of the 2009 work ‘The Shoemaker’s Shrine’, a memorial celebration of Northamptonshire’s shoe industry. Originally commissioned by J Gallery it was subsequently shown at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, the home of the country’s most extensive shoe collection.

Developing an idea already approached in previous works, ‘London Walks’ encapsulates the symbolism of flowers and plants gathered while walking around the city. That symbolism has at its centre the Victorian ‘secret language of flowers’, in which plants were endowed with specific meanings that may not have been possible to express verbally in an emotionally ‘repressed’ society.


Artist’s bio:

Mixed media artist Henny Burnet works from her studio in Bristol. She attended Byam Shaw School of Art in London, Fiberworks in Berkeley, California, Edinburgh College of Art and University College London, Institute of Education. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally and been awarded numerous grants, commissions and residencies; Lead visual artist on ‘Animating the Archives’, Medieval Library, Salisbury Cathedral funded by Heritage lottery “National Memory – Local Stories” a creative participation project lead by The National Portrait Gallery, London The b-side Festival commissioned the audio-visual installation Captain’s Cabinet that responded to Portland’s history of shipwrecks Further commissions: Elements at The Wellcome Collection in London, The Shoemaker’s Shrine at The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Open Desk at The Ragged School Museum in London.