We live in a world of flux. There’s a timorous buzz in the air,” artist Stina Joy Henslee writes. “COVID-19, the Trump era, the Internet age with its constant feeds of information, civil unrest, protests around racial injustice, rising rates of anxiety and panic among youth . . . We do our best to cope and block out the noise—in both healthy and not so healthy ways.”
Henslee’s exhibition, Stretched Thin, represents a healthy way of coping with our current age of anxiety, an artist’s response to unsettled times. In 10 paintings using a variety of materials, she explores visual manifestations of both tension and its relief, excavating and exposing the undercurrent of apprehension in our everyday lives. The figures in her paintings are precariously balanced— on tightropes, under water, in yoga poses, on suspension bridges—with straining muscles, clenched jaws, and a palpable sense of disquiet appropriate to our time.
But Henslee’s work in Stretched Thin is not entirely bleak. Amidst her riotous figures and scenes of instability, viewers can find symbols of peace, humor, and ease: laughter and smiles, dancing, fluidity, weightlessness. These juxtapositions give the work a sense of narrative and development—as well as a sense of hope.
“I hope this exhibition will foster a sense of connection,” Henslee said, “and encourage shared dialogue about personal experiences of tension and release.” Messages of community and persistence emerge from what would appear, in Stinslee’s paintings, to be intractable situations. In these threads of optimism, the artist offers a reminder that even the darkest setting contains light.