Cary Henrie must have been born with an inherent connection to the American West, and it permeates his artwork. Born in Utah, 1961, he later moved to New York to study art at the prestigious Pratt Institute. After painting for ten years in the city, Henrie set out on his westward pilgrimage, landing in Bountiful, Utah and began capturing the beauty of his surroundings on canvas.
His paintings are created by a unique process of combining oils and acrylics layered upon canvas. With each piece, Henrie spends hours laying his canvas with additive and subtractive methods: sanding, varnishing, taping, adding paint, burnishing and removing layers of paint and plaster. Henrie's highly textural process lends to the depth and sophistication of each work of art. Henrie uses a mixture of plaster, oil paints, crackle paints, and acrylic paints to create his multi-dimensional paintings.
Henrie's abstracted landscapes of the weathered west embrace vibrant earth tones and windswept horizons, capturing the vastness of this great area. Aside from the western façade, Cary draws inspiration from Italian frescos, photographic negatives, and his time spent in New York museums.
Cary's paintings convey a sense of vast, peaceful stretches of land; places you have been and remember in an idyllic way. His use of juxtaposed panels with the picture suggests a subject behind the subject, almost a window-like view into the painting. His translucent bands form filtered lines of demarcation between thoughts. Always, there are the planes, gradations, and shifts that keep the image in motion. Cary Henrie is a dynamic artist who goes beyond appearance and paints the idea of landscape.
The artist says of his work, "I really try to capture a symbolic or time weathered scene or landscape with an abstract sensibility." Aside from a western looking facade, Cary Henrie draws much inspiration from Italian frescos and his time spent in New York museums.
Cary Henrie was voted one of the top 10 artists to watch in 2006 in Southwest Art Magazine, and he was featured in a cover story in the national publication Sedona Monthly.
Cary is also a jury-invited artist to the Florence, Italy Biennale 2007.
Cary Henrie's collectors include Whoopi Goldberg and Mrs. Fields of Mrs Fields Cookies, and his paintings have been used in apartment scenes in Major Motion Pictures.
