Kevin Henkes
If you only know Kevin Henkes through his magical children’s books, your first stop for Gallery Night on May 6 should be Madison’s Central Library, which is unveiling an exhibit of never-before-seen new works of abstract collage by the Madison-based author and children’s book illustrator.
The show is titled simply “40: Collages by Kevin Henkes,” and will run through June.
Central Library is the perfect place for the award-winning author to display new work. “I’m naturally drawn to libraries,” says Henkes. “As a boy we didn’t have a lot of books, so the library was very important to my mother. The library was where I was exposed to art, to literature and to life beyond my hometown.”
Trent Miller, who runs the library’s Bubbler program, says people who know and love Henkes’ children’s books — including such classics as Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Kitten’s First Full Moon and Waiting — will enjoy the colorful, smaller-scale fine art works, which highlight a new aspect of Henkes’ talents.
In the collages, lively shapes, colors and textures are balanced in a range of high-spirited paper compositions. Eye-pleasing contrasts and harmonies meet sophistication, simplicity and the mysterious use of line — elements that make abstract forms simultaneously new and as eternal as nature’s own startling motifs.
Racine-born Henkes attended UW-Madison and has won the prestigious Caldecott, Newbery and Geisel honors and medals. He constructs his mixed-media two-dimensional collages with paper he’s been saving for decades, and he’s composed all the works in the exhibit within the past four years.
Henkes was initially excited by the art of collage when he studied in the 1980s with Walter Hamady of the UW art department, learning about paper- and book-making.
Kevin Henkes
He draws inspiration from the cut-outs of Henri Matisse, whose work he saw in New York, a favorite travel destination. Henkes also cites the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) and the American artist and sculptor Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) as important favorites in shaping his aesthetic.
“I like that there’s no deadline pressure or approval process when I’m making the collages,” Henkes says, describing how he selects colors and designs his shapes and lines with scissors and a paper cutter and sometimes by tearing. “I’m just having fun doing what I love.”
He works on the paper collages in between book projects, or occasionally when he feels stuck or blocked. Sometimes he sketches a study, allowing the process or “play” to determine the final juxtapositions of paper he affixes with archival glue.
The works at the exhibition, untitled but numbered, are for sale. A few feature drawings, in pencil. “I’ll mimic the appearance of staples, for example,” says Henkes.
In the end, the artist says he chose simpler works for the show, weeding out some of the more intricate ones. “My favorites were the ones in which I used fewer pieces of paper.”
“I find as I get older I like simpler things,” he adds. “Sometimes it’s the combination of colors that drives the finished collage and other times it’s an unexpected design element or playful or elegant form that clicks and makes something pleasing to look at.”
An opening reception for 40: Collages by Kevin Henkes is May 6, 6-10 p.m., in the library’s Diane Endres Ballweg Gallery.
