Central College welcomes the works of Stina Joy Henslee, mixed media artist and graphic designer, to the Mills Gallery. The exhibit is on display through Friday, Oct. 18. An artist’s reception will be 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17.
Henslee incorporates spray paint, acrylic, ink, jelly pen, string, collage, watercolor and stencil — juxtaposed tight-line work and expressive painterly strokes. Her work is typically thematic in nature, but ties together through personal symbolic imagery.
Henslee writes in her artist statement that the human experience is filled with great joy and great trauma and art should reflect that. “My work is steeped in emotion, but makes use of kitschy elements as a contrast to the seriousness, because what is life without humor? The artistic approach I take is an ‘any means possible’ attitude when it comes to the media I use,” she says.
Henslee relocated to Dubuque, Iowa, in 2020, from her hometown of Chicago. At the age of two, she decided she wanted to be an artist and spent her formative years obsessively drawing the Pegasus and other equine forms. In 1999 she spent a year in Helsinki attending a fine arts high school and then continued her arts education at Washington University in St. Louis where she studied printmaking, German and art history. She has worked as a graphic designer, primarily in book and catalog design.
Brian Roberts, professor of art and 1992 Central graduate, curated the exhibit.
The Mills Gallery, Lubbers Center for the Visual Arts on Central’s campus, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The gallery curates exhibits throughout the academic year to expand opportunities for students to experience artistic styles and cultural interpretations.