Terre à Terre A.P.T. Gallery 6, Creekside London SE8 +44 (0)20 8692 1427
Originally on the bare ground, then fixed on the wall, today the works of Bénédicte Henderick rest on a base. They do not lose solemnity but rather appear liberated. Her first works often represented fertility in an organic way. The recent structures of Bénédicte Henderick are like the foundations of a choreographic enactment.
In performances without actions, offering even more pleasure, they give rhythm to fictive residues of a traumatic scene. Pegs, tenons and mortises become crosspieces and out-jutting suspensions out of which, suddenly, a piece of red wool flows ; a terrifying tear of blood that petrifies us. Elsewhere, other structures borrow their shape from a table or bed, remaining patiently bare, and seem naked after the sight of the previous structures.
Ambivalent and introspective, the works of Bénédicte Henderick encourage us to create our own interpretations. Each piece contains a promise that only the observer will be able to hold or not ; by our presence, we are so much intimately linked to the uncoiling of the mechanical and suspended ballet through which the work reveals itself. No one knows, the artist or ourselves, who will get out unharmed from this battlefield.