off beat artist

ANNEKA FRENCH FINDS US-BASED ARTIST KENT HENRICKSEN SEEKS TO BOTH SATISFY AND UNSETTLE THE VIEWER

■ US-BASED KENT HENRICKSEN began stitching as a child. Since then, his creative practice has grown into a rich body of work combining the slowness of embroidery and tapestry with other mediums, such as painting, drawing, printmaking and ceramics, to explore narratives inspired by history and current events.

‘When I was nine or ten years old, my mother and I worked on stitching kits together,’ he recalls. ‘The kits were similar to paint by number kits but with thread.We would fill in scenes of seascapes and wildlife printed on fabric with threads of different colours. I remember being very excited by a scene of ducks flying over a marsh. At the time, I was playing the video game Duck Hunt and I wanted to create that image out of thread. It was a funny cross-over of interests,’ he remembers. ‘She also taught me how to knit around the same time. I have always been someone who likes making.