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Henry Riekena
LIGHT-REACTIVE WORK
Source/Receiver - 48" x 96"
Inspired through synaesthesia while listening to the Tycho album "Epoch." Two song titles from that album ("Source" and "Receiver") informed both the name I chose for the piece, and some of the visual movement within it. One of the things that I see happening in this piece is a shift from feeling like the middle of the painting is a void, possibly a rift into which the structures surrounding it slowly fall ("receiving"), to where it becomes a source, radiating power and light that cascades through the fabric of the world around it.
The Black Cube - 48" x 60"
There is something simultaneously menacing and exhilarating about the black cube. It crackles with intensity.
Even The Rocks Have A Soul - 40" x 60"
Inspired by desert landscapes after a trip through the southwest,
Relumenate - 96" x 120"
This large-format painting was started as a live painting performance with musician Charles Darius. It was continued in situ at Lumen labs for a month before becoming stranded there as pandmic lockdown began. It was finally retrieved and completed once vaccines were available, and its title comes from the excitement of a world opening back up.
Inception 36" x 48"
Created in 2023 as part of an experiment in collaborating with AI. After feeding most of my body of work into a blank AI, I generated hundreds of images based on that work. I then used one of those images as the starting point for this piece, which brought up feelings around the genesis of something new, as reflected in the title. Shapes invoke DNA, an animated digital landscape, and perhaps energies reaching out across the expanse to touch, reminiscent of "The Creation of Adam". And even when everything else seems to fall away, something remains, glowing ghostily in the void.
A Breach In The Conduit - 48" x 48"
Created in 2023 as the second piece of an experiment in collaborating with AI. After feeding most of my body of work into a blank AI, I generated hundreds of images based on that work. I then used one of those images as the starting point for this piece.
I use the term "conduit" sometimes to signify the connection to the greater-than-human world; the divine, or universal consciousness. This painting begins as a pulsing pipeline of inspiration and beauty, but as we enter the UV spectrum, a form appears. Is it a crack? A figure? This was in some way metaphorical for Artificial Intelligence intruding into the realm of creativity. There is something vaguely ominous. We are not even sure WHAT this thing is, much less its intentions. Will it sever or forever change this connection to source? Or will it, too, simply be subsumed into the infinite?
I use the term "conduit" sometimes to signify the connection to the greater-than-human world; the divine, or universal consciousness. This painting begins as a pulsing pipeline of inspiration and beauty, but as we enter the UV spectrum, a form appears. Is it a crack? A figure? This was in some way metaphorical for Artificial Intelligence intruding into the realm of creativity. There is something vaguely ominous. We are not even sure WHAT this thing is, much less its intentions. Will it sever or forever change this connection to source? Or will it, too, simply be subsumed into the infinite?
The Art Is In The Shining,
60" x 40"
The title for this piece comes from a letter that I wrote to a friend who was visiting New Orleans to work on her music.
The last line of the letter said "Let the beauty of it's dirty, sloppy, funky imperfection remind you that you can shine through all of your limitations, and that the important art is there in the shining, not in the perfecting." One could argue that this is true in almost any art form--what an audience really RESPONDS to, the part with real power, is the spirit of the artist, musician, or dancer that is behind the work, that inspired them to do this thing in the first place.
The last line of the letter said "Let the beauty of it's dirty, sloppy, funky imperfection remind you that you can shine through all of your limitations, and that the important art is there in the shining, not in the perfecting." One could argue that this is true in almost any art form--what an audience really RESPONDS to, the part with real power, is the spirit of the artist, musician, or dancer that is behind the work, that inspired them to do this thing in the first place.
Ripples of Source,
40" x 60"
Originally created as a study for "Return To Source," a large-scale triptych that was first installed at Burning Man 2016. I reworked this painting slightly in 2024, using new techniques for working with UV reactivity. Now it is the pulsing, mind-bending portal that I had initially dreamed of making. It recedes and emerges, its energy rippling outward from the center and back in, washing our minds of their troubles.
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