Harper Henry | Going Home

Having returned to the West of her ancestors, Harper Henry now paints its people and animals

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

Every artist has a different definition of home. For some artists, home is amid the high-energy streets of the big city. Others prefer quiet small-town life where everyone knows their name. For Harper Henry, home is the land where 500 wild horses run free.

Henry, a contemporary western painter, lives in south-central Arizona near the Tonto National Forest, where a band of mustangs roam the banks of the Lower Salt River. These equines are a major source of her creative inspiration. The magnificent creatures are thought to be descendants of the Spanish Colonial or Iberian horses that explorers brought to the American Southwest in the 16th century.

Henry is quick to explain that she has felt a natural affinity for horses in general since childhood. Today her vibrant, colorful artworks capture her long-standing passion for equines as well as life in the West. Viewers can expect to see a range of subject matter in her oeuvre, from Native Americans dancing to rodeo cowboys roping and riding. When it comes to the style of her work, Henry could be described as a disrupter of sorts, often deviating from the traditional western genre. The artist pushes boundaries, mixes styles, and always sets out to create something new and never seen before.

When we caught up with Henry at her home in Mesa, just east of Phoenix, the artist had recently finished her submission for the Mountain Oyster Club Contemporary Western Art Show, which opens in November. This lively work, titled SIX HORSES, seamlessly blends realism and abstraction. Henry depicts the horses realistically while also evoking movement as they race against a featureless background. Or, as Henry puts it, they are “running through a moment of abstraction. No rocks or trees, just landscapes of abstract paint,” she says. “I love the duality.”

Incidentally, SIX HORSES is also a tribute to the late western painter Oleg Stavrowsky (1927-2020), a significant influence on Henry’s aesthetic sense. “He is the first artist who introduced me to the concept of abstract realism,” she says. “His combination of realistic western figures surrounded by abstract paint applications was pioneering in his time. The sense of movement he achieved still fascinates me.”

Henry’s influences also come from well beyond the West, though—as is evident in even a quick look at her paintings from this year’s Cowgirl Up! show, held at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, AZ. Those works reference another artist she considers a master, Gustav Klimt. The Austrian symbolist, mostly a figurative painter, became well-known during what is called his “golden phase,” when he incorporated gold leaf into his oils. WOMAN IN GOLD and THE KISS are famous works from this phase.

In paintings like BEAR IN GOLD, Henry envelops her four-legged subjects with gold leaf. The portraits also feature patches of multicolored geometric shapes, again inspired by Klimt. “One goal in this work was to somewhat glamorize these animals by adorning them with intricacies of gold,” Henry says. Her efforts proved successful, as she won the Artists’ Choice Award for her body of work. Peter Strub, owner of The Marshall Gallery, which represents Henry, describes her as an artist who always seeks new ways to push boundaries. “Harper’s pioneering style unites past and present disciplines in an unlikely yet attractive harmony,” Strub says. “She employs bold brushwork to lend her subjects spirit and evoke a sense of movement and vitality.”

Henry was born in Idaho Falls, ID, and lived briefly in California, but she grew up primarily in a small Connecticut town. Despite this New England upbringing, her connections to the West run deep. As a youngster, Henry visited her aunt and uncle’s ranch in Idaho every summer. “Time spent there riding horses, taking long Jeep rides up into the mountains, and exploring old, abandoned ghost towns was invaluable to me,” Henry says.

The West, she explains, got into her blood back then and never left. Henry’s maternal grandparents came to the mountains of central Idaho in the 1940s. They purchased a ranch house along the Salmon River, where they raised their five children. Her grandfather hauled an old army barracks up the mountain, section by section, and reassembled it into what became the Royal Gorge Motel, a rustic fishing resort.

Eventually Native Americans from the Blackfoot tribe began stopping by regularly as they migrated seasonally along the river. The visits went on for years. “My grandparents welcomed them in and shared all the food, clothes, and blankets they could spare,” Henry says. “The Blackfoot travelers would then give my grandparents beautiful handmade items in exchange.” On her father’s side, Henry’s great-grandparents befriended the Lakota tribe in the Dakota Territory in the late 1800s, often trading sugar and flour with them. Her grandfather carried on the family legacy, and in 1930, for his friendship and service to the community, the Lakota declared him an honorary tribal member.

In a recent essay titled Why I Paint the American West, Henry reflects nostalgically on her annual summer journeys to the West. Because her mother was afraid to fly, everyone piled into the family’s station wagon for the four-day drive from Connecticut. “The days were long, but I have fond memories of them,” Henry says. “We got to see so much of this beautiful country, mile by mile. I spent my traveling time drawing and coloring, which was always my favorite thing to do.”

As a youngster, she treasured an old cigar box where she kept her crayons and enjoyed drawing with pencils and markers, too. “The drawings were illustrations that made comical commentary about my little world and the funny things I saw on television,” she says.

Henry recalls that, early on, she knew art was something she was supposed to do in life. “It was the only thing that felt like me,” she says. Thus, after graduating from high school, she enrolled in Paier College of Art then located in Hamden, CT, eventually earning a degree in fine art. Over the course of her successful, decades-long career on the East Coast as both a graphic designer and an art director for major corporations, she also raised a family. But spare moments at night and on the weekends were devoted to painting.

Like her mother, Henry says, she yearned for years to return to the West and live there permanently. Countless soul-searching hours were spent trying to figure out how she could “go home” and leave behind what she describes as the cold shores of New England, with its difficult winters. Her mother never realized her dream. But in 2016, Henry finally took a leap of faith, packed her bags, and headed with her husband to Arizona to begin a new chapter in life.

In Mesa she not only lives side by side with the mustangs but also is surrounded by three Native American tribes, including the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. These days Henry continues her long tradition of attending powwows and tribal dances. And she carries on the legacy of her ancestors by honoring Native cultures and traditions in her artwork. A recent piece, DANCES WITH ANCESTORS, is a good example. “I particularly tried to challenge myself to relay the intensity of the spiritual connection I often perceive while watching these masterful dancers,” Henry says. “They are not just dancing. I believe something bigger is going on. I feel they are connecting with the planet, their heritage, and possibly spirits from long ago.” With the recent sale of the painting, Henry is making a donation to the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to ending gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people.

In her essay about why she paints the West, Henry concludes by saying that it took a lifetime to orchestrate her big move, but she has finally made it home: “I now live in the beautiful Sonoran Desert of Arizona and spend my days painting the land, the people, and the creatures who also call it home.”

representation
The Marshall Gallery of Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Mountain Trails Gallery, Jackson, WY, and Park City, UT; Victory Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM; Standard Western Art + Drink, Steamboat Springs, CO; www.harperhenry.com.

This story appeared in the October/November 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.