| |
ARTIST PROFILE
Click here to Go to
ANTARCTICA
ARTIST PORTRAIT
Beth Henry’s photography in her own words.
 “Before my focus through a camera lens became a consuming interest, my artistic life was with hammer, chisel, rasp and stone, trying to meet the challenge of sculpting animals. By osmosis, one’s eyes and creative intuition begin to be acutely aware of line, shadow, and dimension.
These qualities became part of my vision in presenting African wildlife subjects. I began to experiment by assembling different images in a given picture. I often think of my photographs as ‘small worlds,’ brief stories that took place in front of me, events often seen quickly and with great intensity. I want the viewer to step out from himself for a moment, accept my invitation to visit behind the frame of the picture, not everything is seen at once in these ‘captured events.’
The trees and skies, heat, dust and the animals all say ‘this is Africa’ whether one has been there or not. I want to bring forward a mood. The sepia earth tones exude a kind of timeless dream. Perhaps they jog a memory, of things seen in the beginning in the exploration of a magnificent continent. I want to underscore the vital importance of preserving Africa’s species and their environments. Today they are threatened even more by exploding populations in a politically unstable world.”
Henry has exhibited in galleries across the country since 1981. In her home town she has held several one-woman shows, including a benefit for “The Flying Doctors of East Africa.” The Museum of the Southwest has also hosted her work in Midland, Texas. In May of 2001, Henry’s elephant photograph titled “Big Bad Bull” was featured at a charity event at Sotheby’s in London, for the benefit of Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton’s “Save the Elephant Tusk Trust.”
Henry is a member of the Society of Animal Artists of New York, The Catherine Lorillard Wolf Art Club where she won an IBM award, and The Pen and Brush Club. In 2003 she had a solo exhibit of over 30 photographs at the Bendheim Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. four hundred guests attended.
KEEPING TRACK
"Since my last visit in Africa, it still invaded my thoughts, nudged me with its wildness, swept me with its space, it would enter me unannounced. Its essence sighed like an echo in an almost forgotten cave, knocked longingly at the center cavity of my being. In return, I stalked it, looked for signs that might lead me there. In early morning, watering my garden, I might think that I could find some tracks, discover a sure sign of its presence, a soft voice wanting me to come. Perhaps I could fabricate some excuse to enter into it, borrow some time, cross its border, be a part of her rhythms for awhile. The urge was acute enough that in September 2006, in the dry season, I returned to Tanzania with a planned visit at the end to the island of Zanzibar.
HIGHLIGHTS
 In transit to Arusha, we take an unplanned turn and fly within reach of Mt Ol Doinyo Lengai, sacred mountain of the Massai. Our little plane, like a cautious dog, circled this live volcano. This morning the volcano wears clouds nicely, wrapping them around its chocolate skin. Its cone rises up sharply from a deeply ravined and parched land, ravaged by seasons of drought over time. Mt. Doinyo is sleeping, its eye closed but it can't be trusted not to cheat. Evidence around it are cool cones of enormous pearl gray ash and a frozen caramel river of lava spills from a slit in its lower cheek. This inactive giant exudes an active power. Fixing a mystical grip on me, it draws tears from my eyes, pulls breath from my lungs. Today, a year later almost to the day, it spews its fiery indigestion into the atmosphere.
I come to the northern part of Tanzania, in the Serengeti with its dramatic outcroppings of stone called kopjes, a guest of the Masai. In cool, dew laden mornings, I can look into Kenyas Mara and see the lollipop shapes of hot-air balloons taking people up with a hiss of gas to spy on wildlife. When night comes into our camp, two Massai warriors wearing their scarlet cloaks keep watch all through the black hours, keep us safe. Like elongated bronze angelic monopods, the pair stand guard near the small crackle of a fire until light breaks.
HIGHLIGHTS
The great migration is on, a moving cave painting when thousands of wildebeest and zebras, respond to the allure green, of fresh grass. The two animals share differing lengths in grazing so never deplete the food for the other. They are not without an audience. Predators in differing shapes and sizes follow. It is a time of waiting. We wait for them to cross the river. We humans want tumult, crashing numbers, the drama of chaos. Crocs wait, hearts slowed under horned torpedo bodies, laze on banks behind sinister smiles. Lions pace. Leopards wait, but high up under the roof of acacias. Hyenas skulk under sloping backs. Vultures catch their thermal buses each morning and circle, scoping, hoping. Clouds hang thick and low in gray unease. Everyday the wildebeest, in bearded indecision, are running us out of hours, as they plod, approaching the river, peer over the brink and turn away. Our clocks tick onward, push us forward, and are ruthless with us.
HIGHLIGHTS
This morning brings a cheetah mother and her two four month old cubs. She is dressed in grace, every gesture royal and liquid. They have made a kill and are contented. They play, whirl and tussle. Their mother washes them vigorously, but still hang onto their spots.
HIGHLIGHTS
At dawn, at the mouth of a dry river, a triumvirate of young lions,
half-grown wrestlers, good humouredly growl, stalk, ambush, chase, paws the size of platters-I meet the Katisunga pride.
HIGHLIGHTS
 The Massai call their cattle by name, bring them to water, a woman opens the sluice. A massive bull in black is a prize stud, swings his heavy set of lunar horns, his manhood. Dust rises and rises, the air filled with lowing.
On the road, calico quilts of goats and sheep stream in pie-bald patterns fills my ears with bells
Water, is an issue, means survival. What is left of it, is being sucked up by a merciless sun and the passage of days. Hippos are under this huge pressure press closer and closer into the deepest part of ponds. I see unhappy stacks of miserably angry animals. Fights break out, the stink intensifies, the shit builds up. Now in this cesspool there is a dead croc upside down in bloat. He must have singled out a baby and was attacked and met his end in this living hell. Outside of the diminishing ponds, some huge bull hippos have incased themselves in mud, gargantuan rare pink beings "en croute".
HIGHLIGHTS
Thirty minutes before sunset, a lioness on a mission leads us to her cubs, to her buffalo kill. Lion mouths gnaw on the crimson fan of its rib-cage; cubs with stuffed bellies roll in grass, blissful.
HIGHLIGHTS
At a river crossing, white heron rides a hippo's back never losing balance or composure, leans down and catches a fish--"Lunch on the Ferry".
HIGHLIGHTS
Salt flats-herds of zebras roll, the talc clouds barely disguise a maze of black and white stripes-an endless parade, baby elephant still nursing, lies on his stomach to lick the minerals. Masses of female eles here, breeding herds. Another youngster, shrieks interrupting silence, our vehicle the cause of his alarm. Suddenly, we are surrounded by a grey wrinkled protective army throwing us menacing looks, tension rains in a sudden shower.
DETAILS
Sometimes a forest isn't empty. The slender trees become giraffe in mimic, wear sweeps of eyelashes and stubby horns
.
Look at the ancient bulbous watch of Baobab. Dressed in an elephant skin bark, not two are alike.
Look at the massive buff staring at me; smelling me with moist nose, he wears a tick bird for a hat right in the center of his boney bosse.
Serval kitten at my feet so disguised I couldn't find him in his coat of striped light and shade. When he looked at me, his eyes were the color of chalcedony, a slate blue
Have you ever noticed bones? The scatter of spinal columns like pick up sticks game then pelvis circles bleached white like discarded eye glasses.
The rustle of vervet monkeys gave it away-a newborn impala just dropped under leaves, his mother washing him with reassurance.
Katavi with its endless sandy plains-high slender grace of Dum palms- pink blooms, Elephant armies, zebra hoards, Elephants in camp at lunch, a trunk through the window, exploring the sink while a human cowers on the floor
Mahale, no roads, high mountain forest, hoots of chimpanzee, Lake Tanganika, second largest fresh water lake in the world, baboons on the beach, wart hug rumble, scrumbling, nosing for nuts, scratching against spiny palms. You don't nap here!
Sand River, the Selous,- bull hippo charge, steam from his nostril, his bulk ruffles the Rifigi River; upstream tumble of ebony basalt, huge boulders speak of an ancient time of forming, of flames: lions on the rocks, courting, skimmers in black and white feathers, orange bills dip over water: crocs still everywhere: waterbuck signal with white rumps, scamper onto sandy spits on spongy hooves: the piercing whistle of rock hyraxes, silly little mousey cousins of the rhino; high songs of fish-eagle pair, sun catches their snowy necks.
LAST HIGHLIGHT-FLY CAMP
Sleeping in a tiny netted space, low smolder of fire and lantern. On the shore of a small lake, I lie and watch the setting of the Southern Cross, his pointer falling from this inky heavenly bowl,, while Scorpio follows dragging his stinging tail. This is glittery traffic as Orion and his hound ascend over my head to begin their stellar hunt. Far off, I hear the throaty grunt of lion. On my back my face faintly glows with the wash of stars, lucky to be alive, I feel Africa just below my back.”
~Elizabeth B. Henry 2007
Click here to Go to
ANTARCTICA
|
