American artist HENRY DEAN lives in Savannah, GA, working in various modes (drawing and mixed media works on paper, installation, painting, sculpture, video). He has practiced artmaking across the US and abroad. His work is collected internationally. Dean graduated St. Andrews University, Scotland (1980, MFA honors, Geography and Fine Arts combined), and Savannah College of Art and Design (2003, MFA Painting).

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Dean’s work expresses landscape in flux, where direct response to environments co-mingles ideas within artistic processes. By engaging the unpredictability and soundness of landscape his art shows that attention to nature has traction in the context of today’s meta-modern culture. His work expresses a bonding compassion to landscape, assigning completeness, beauty, value, etc., to experience/ product. Dean’s art emphasizes that everything is complete, one moment at a time, revealing the quantum nature of Nature.

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In 1999 Dean became a professor in the School of Foundation Studies at SCAD (Savannah). In 2017 he was made coordinator of SCAD’s Drawing Minor program. He writes and speaks about varied topics that include the metaphysics of environment, and the practices of drawing in contemporary art.

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PIECE FOR MAKING WAVES

Untitled, Panel 4/ 8458-17, 2017

Mixed media, estuary environment, canvas

27 1/8" x 28 1/4" x 2"

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PIECE FOR MAKING WAVES

Forsythe Park Cut Away, 2018

Mixed media

19 1/4" x 15" 

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PIECE FOR MAKING WAVES

Waving Girl Cut Away, 2018

Mixed media                                                                                19 1/2" x 15 1/4" 

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PIECE FOR MAKING WAVES

Watercourse, 2018

Mixed media on canvas

24 x 30" 

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PIECE FOR MAKING WAVES

Register (Blue River), 2006 - 2018

Mixed media, Savannah River sediments, store-bought quilt.

56" x 34" 

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ARTIST STATEMENT:

When a person, or animal we love becomes hurt or sick we move mountains to help them recover. When the nation is threatened we pull together.

 

So what about the environment, that encompasses everything—running through our taps, entering our lungs?

 

Genesis of pollution and restorative efforts protecting the environment are personal and collective matters. How do we move forward, making progress?

 

Little changes can be made as individuals (we can buy thermoses and reduce use of bottled water).

 

Protecting waterways on a broader scale requires communicating with each other as citizens and neighbors. We have to reassure those who feel this effort might hurt jobs, and/or diminish personal liberties.

 

If we make it our purpose we can work towards a goal of making Savannah a center of ideas, being more than a wonderful place to raise a family, a solid place for business, or an attractive destination for tourists. Folks who visit can leave inspired as much by what we do, as the place itself.

 

I like to imagine, but I’m not sure it’s true, that in the 1730’s when Oglethorpe and Tomochichi collaborated in friendship, overstanding conventions and tribe, they operated with the knowledge that their example would reverberate, providing future residents of Savannah with a road-map how to make positive things happen.

 

Henry Dean, May 17, 2018

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Header Image:

Tilt/panel 5, 2017

Mixed Media

27" x 23"

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Visit Henry on Facebook here.

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