Work in Progress: Holly Hendry—“The spontaneity and chaos of the moment”

Work in Progress checks in on artists bringing new work to Frieze fairs to find out where they are at. Ahead of her solo exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery, which will see the space transformed into a chaotic noticeboard, Holly Hendry discusses finding new sources of inspiration, collaboration and gesture.

Livia Russell How is your practice currently evolving?   

Holly Hendry I have recently started using glass-blowing and metal-casting methods, incorporating these new material techniques into my work, and working with specialists who know the craft much better than me. With glass-blowing, there is such unpredictability to it: you have to work around the spontaneity and chaos in the moment where solid mass becomes oozing and liquid. Similarly, with metal-casting, I have been pouring and modelling hot green wax to determine forms and shapes before it is dipped in ceramic shell and molten metal is poured as part of the foundry process. These new methods have meant that I am working in different ways, working at different speeds and working with other people. These new moments of material transformation feel exciting and unpredictable alongside my more familiar processes.

LR Where does the work you will be presenting at Frieze New York fit within this evolution?  

HH The works I am currently making, and presenting at Frieze New York, are forms that appear to exist halfway between a paper note and an X-ray. I hope they convey something that feels quite instinctive or immediate, like a note written to yourself to remember or remind, or a passing feeling or memory. Most of the works have these new elements of cast metal or glass incorporated into them, so I hope there is a tension between permanence and lack of permanence: a scrappy note of “things to do” fossilized in metal, or an internal gut movement held in its convulsion through the shape of the glass.

LR Are there new sources of inspiration that are guiding your current work?  

HH The larger sculpture that I am currently working on is titled Weather Vein and will look a bit like an undulating or reclining roof that has become almost liquid, like rain drops that fall down it. I am trying to get to a point where roof tiles are full of expression and the guttering is sinuous and supple. This work feels like the most direct response to my new research and thoughts around weather as a verbal form, as something embodied and entangled: our bodies “bearing the impressions of the weather world,” as Astrida Neimanis says. I have been reading Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing’s Horror in Architecture, which is a brilliant examination of architectural and anatomical monstrosity in relation to possible futures. This book has been a great source of inspiration regarding beauty, and unsettling, ungrammatical anatomies and elastic architectures.

LR Which part of your process are you devoting your time to in the studio right now?  

HH I have been finishing all of the waxes and parts of the works that have longer working times. I have started bending lead and joining pipes alongside the slower casting processes. My studio is usually a mix of many different components and processes happening simultaneously, where speed is an important factor; days and days of prep can lead to one quite intense pour, which happens over the space of a few minutes.

LR How is presenting new work at a fair different to a gallery show?  

HH For me, scale and site-specificity are the main factors that differentiate the work in this instance. For the past two years, most of my works have been public commissions that are sited outdoors or have been made for specific spaces, involving lots of planning and preparation. For these new works I have really enjoyed the intimacy of working to a different scale, where gesture and exploration can happen with ease, immediacy and excitement. 

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Frieze New York returns to The Shed, May 1–5, 2024.

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^{Main Image: Holly Hendry's Studio © Holly Hendry. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York}