Henry Whysall

Expositie van 3 - 9 juli 2026.
Elke dag open van 12u - 18u.

biography

‘The gaze needs saving from the lazy fixation of addictive scrolling. I am always concerned with slowing the eye down a little by drawing it into the painting rather than simply across it’.
‘Transformation is the central spine of all art. Alchemy interested me for many years, for obvious reasons.
An interest I share with many other artists. Alchemy is the black sheep twin of science. It is Science's bubbling, stinking, esoteric smear stained shadow - it is hope against experience.’

Conversational Pieces, Henry Whysall, 2024

Henry Whysall (b. 1977, Antwerp) discovered his love of art at a very early age, sparked by a childhood trip to Florence
when he was 6. Michelangelo was one of his first artistic heroes.

He studied architecture at Heriot Watt University in Scotland before committing fully to painting at Saint Martins
College of Art in London. Over three years, his practice shifted from figurative work to experimental process painting,
blending wax, plaster, and pigment to subtly evoke the human form.

Rooted for years in East London, Henry drew on science and experimentation, tracing visual echoes between the
microscopic and the cosmic, and delving into the murky histories of alchemy with its laboratories of the impossible. At
the heart of his practice lies a deep sensitivity to the sensuality and poetry of materials.

A move to Venice in 2015 brought new influences: Byzantine mosaics, sacred iconography, and the luminous tones of
Murano glass were mirrored in his jewel-like, small-scale works.

Returning to Antwerp in 2019, he turned to monochrome with expressive grisaille paintings, before reintroducing bold
colour in 2022.

His recent abstractions unfold as textured, intricate landscapes that draw the eye both towards then deep into the
layers of the surface.

In 2024, Henry established a new studio in the historic centre of Antwerp, where his work underwent a further
refinement. He is now working towards uniform surfaces that coagulate from an exuberance of materials. If the
continuous surface at first, has a kind of simplicity, the work never quite hides its complex construction. If Henry is
searching for a kind of beauty, it is the kind that is unashamedly smeary, wrought, pulled, pushed and exposed.