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Featured Artist for January 1999
California
Wishes relates a trip that Hemsley missed in Los Angeles. She had been invited
to exhibit her work but ended up in the dramas of moving to a new house. It's
plain to see her thoughts were in California while packing, meeting with finance
executives and taking care of her children. An ill-defined figure emerges in the
left center, who tries unsuccessfully to go against the flow. In missing an exciting
chance for exhibiting her work, frustration seeps through her use of red, but
lies under a blue field that symbolizes authority and healing. Hemsley reflects
today on her sketched wishes of California with a smile.
Hemsley believes that we were all born artistic, but that some of us just "don't
know how to tap into our creative powers." As a child, she was always considered
odd for straying off the beaten path too often. In her early teens, when announcing
to her father that she wanted to study art, he balked. She recalls his immediate
refusal to pay the tuition, followed by a firm "get a real job." So, she quietly
began turning her doodles into drawings. During school, she'd go further than
her average classmate by expressing herself regardless of what others thought.
Although her teachers didn't always approve, she followed her intuition and ended
up receiving high art grades.
Massaging
her pastels into the paper while working on the floor on all fours makes her tick.
She feels most alive when she's working this way and hopes to continue this method
until she's ninety. Her hobbies include movies and when she saw the animated "Antz,"
she cried and practically died of laughter. She believes Steven Spielberg's films
equal humanity's sensibility. Music by Ennio Morricone rings true to her heart,
as do writings by Isabelle Allende and Laura Esquivel. She also enjoys Maya Anjelou's
poetry and Aretha Franklin's passionate singing. Hemsley loves food, colour and
the honesty of Joan Armatrading while enjoying the art of cooking and sharing
with like-minded people. On the other hand, people who make sweeping generalizations
disturb her emotionally. She understands that we're all guilty of this at one
point or another, but can't stand to be around it, as narrow-mindedness also fits
into this scenario.
She feels most creative in the morning when her head is clearest at dawn. Unless she's allowed some silly deadline to get the better of her, she'll then go into overdrive. She will keep creating art for the rest of her life and considers it a full time, life project. Hemsley has young children and has learned to manage time wisely. She realizes time's value and luckily has a supportive family and a network of close friends who understand her schedule. Hemsley works exclusively in Unison soft pastels on rough and smooth surfaces, on 100% cotton cold-press Frabriano Artistico acid free paper. Effects differ on each of the papers, which are coated by excess fixative.
Inspiration for Hemsley
works on three levels. First, her work contains universal values and rhythms of
life. The way we express ourselves through our body language, the rituals we go
through, and our emotional dances. She has a fascination for human behavior. Secondly,
Hemsley uses her work as a channel of expression, when it becomes a narrative
(in "Search For Solitude" or "Nine Nights" available through ArtQuest's Quick
Search). Thirdly, she says, "sometimes, and too rarely, the magic just happens.
This is when the painting seems to paint itself." She was thrilled by this moment
when it first happened, but was told it was no big deal. A friend, who Hemsley
has indicated "is far more evolved than she, calls this meditation. And that
potters and ceramicists are well familiar with this procedure where the pot seems
to turn itself as they work their clay." The series' of Thinker, Creator,
Producer, and Believer is one of her favorite results of meditating. She's intrigued
by life's wonderful tranformational processes.
Hemsley keeps on
producing work because her art is food for her soul. Now it seems her work is
also food for the souls of her audience. She goes on to say, "Nina Simone describes
it very well in her book, 'I Put A Spell On You,' when she describes how she would
play the piano and sing to her audience in grimy halls where she started. Clasically
trained, Simone would take herself off to a different plane. Her magic concerts
were when the audience were able to follow her there." Hemsley thinks she's a
pain to live with during "restful periods," so she tries to put something down
on paper every day. And if it so happens that she can't (as during her kids' school
holidays), she feels a kind of withering, and simply feels the need to do artwork
in order to feel restful.
She was also
the aesthetic lead for the Dan Eldon "Celebration Of Life" exhibit held at the
Watatu Gallery in Nairobi. Dan Eldon was one of the Reuters photographers killed
in Somalia in July 1993. In 1995, Hemsley began to paint full time and showed
her work in a London debut at the end of that year. Second and third solo shows
followed consecutively in Lagos and Istanbul (1996), another in New York in 1998.
With several mixed shows in London and Lagos, she has developed an audience of
both private and corporate collectors in Lagos, Lome, Nairobi and Istanbul, and
continues to explore avenues of exposure for her work that will make it more accessible.
She's currently based in the UK with her husband and two daughters. Contact
the Artist
ARTIST STATEMENT I would
describe my work as intuitive. The pieces are often narrative, as my inspiration
comes from my own life... experiences... travels... observations. The old adage
that says the life we each lead is written on our faces and the stories of our
lives are revealed through our body language is reflected in my “emotional landscapes”.
My chosen medium is soft pastels on paper. It is a medium I find empathetic to
my statements, and I use colour, texture and form to reflect the language of the
painting. Sometimes, the forms have a kind of metamorphic quality which have risen
from colour that is layered to give a translucent feel. This layering of colour
and texture also gives a feeling of movement which is meant to remind the viewer
that Life never stands still. |
Gloria Henschel
