Henrietta Dubrey B. 1966

Works Biography

Biography

Henrietta Dubrey
B. 1966

"My work is generally described as abstract, although I would describe my paintings as autobiographical deconstructions and reconstructions of life. These ideas appear on the canvas surface often as an abstract gestural web, occasionally tangled, occasionally bold and resolved. An iconic form is liberated from a void into being."

Henrietta's paintings are filled with strength and beauty, her abstract forms and her nudes each offering an overwhelming sense of presence, of calm and unapologetic power. Complex, thought-provoking and transcendentally beautiful, Henrietta’s paintings are a paean to the glory of the human form, the scope and scale of nature and also an unending source of joy.

Drawing from first- and second-generation St. Ives artists such as Lanyon, Heron, Frost, Hilton and Blow, her bold and gestural mark-making positions her as the torchbearer at the forefront of the next generation of artists associated with St. Ives.

Henrietta attended Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, receiving a postgraduate diploma from the latter in 1992. A subsequent spell of five years in Normandy was followed by a move to West Cornwall to fully immerse herself in the artistic heritage of the area, a vital inspiration to her creative process.

Henrietta’s work has been selected eight times for the Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibitions.

“Henrietta Dubrey’s female nudes are ferocious; primitive, boldly linear and curvaceous; they face the viewer centrally, frontally, with a knowing confidence. Set against flat, brilliant backgrounds of solid colour, despite their comparatively muted flesh tones, visually they engulf the surface plane as the focal point of attention. These are pieces which through rapid and determined painting a tangible sense of movement and poise communicates itself forcibly. Depicted with faux-naïve simplicity with more than a nod to primitivism, these figures are unabashed and luxurious in their femininity, the sex stark and strangely integrated into the geometric formation of the body. Inspired thus by the giants of linearity, Picasso, Le Corbusier and Hockney, Dubrey brings us a thoroughly contemporary image of the female, draped in cutting edge or avant-garde clothing. Indeed, sensitive to forward thinking fashion and the diffusion of imagery through modern photography, this is made apparent in the strong sense of unwavering focus throughout the works; that an image, once conceived, is rapidly recorded onto canvas with ruthless efficiency.”
— Olivia McEwan, June 2014, ‘An introduction to Henrietta Dubrey's Figurative Art’

 

Selected exhibitions with Livingstone St. Ives

Dog Days & Cat Naps, 2022
Modern Excursion, 2022
Zen: Stream of Consciousness, 2021
Primavera, 2021
Vision, 2021
Beyond Picasso, 2021