Kirk Henriques will be in residence at The Square from November 1, 2022 - January 18, 2023.

Kirk Henriques is a painter whose rich work combines figuration and abstraction to examine landscapes, time, and memory with strong reference to Black people in relation to identity, space, and the balances of societal structure and its inequities.

He explores figuration and abstraction as an investigation into landscapes, time, and memory and investigates power structures embedded in the construction and definition of spatial and temporal narratives. Each space has its own protocols and constructs that are in opposition to Blackness. How do Black people take up space? How are rhythm, posture, and style an integral part of how Black people explore/define/craft their own being or assert their presence? How we look and who’s looking creates a reliance on visual perceptions that define who we are as social beings. This power dynamic allows those who hold the most power within society to exercise control over others by dominating the visual representations while simultaneously creating a fictional narrative of those who lack power. Henriques' paintings jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions, perspectives, and perceptions. He creates new visual terms by challenging expectations of what the figure should be that includes at times forcibly ripping, cutting, and layering his works. The surfaces of his paintings are not perfect or pristine, rather they are built up and then scraped down. For him, this process is a metaphor for resilience; it is his personal experience of resourcefulness, of using scraps to make something whole and new. His use of unconventional materials is a way to challenge traditional painting and expand on my personal and historical narratives. He intentionally explores lyrical marks, which explore tension between the social psyche of the figure and the formal expressiveness of the work. Thus creating an intersection where the formal and the conceptual elements of the work feed each other. Much of Black people in film and Western art have been defined visually in three small boxes: enslaved, in servitude, or impoverished. He is intentional about whom he paints and the surfaces he paints on as a way to negate this singular story and limited point of view. He uses his authorship of visual representation as a form of resistance through the exploration of how figures navigate visible and obscure obstacles on their way to liberation.

Henriques received his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and MFA from Cornell University. He has had solo exhibitions at Charles Moffett in NYC, Unrepd in Los Angeles, The Millbrook School in Hudson Valley, NY, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY. His work has also been included in group shows at the San Francisco Art Institute, Kavi Gupta Gallery, the New York Academy of Art, and Bridget Donahue.