The 11ft Man, 2024,
This project emerged through an invitation from artist and curator Amy Hicks, whose collaborative spirit helped bring this dialogue to life. As part of Of The Day: A Common Place—a two-person exhibition with Theresa Rose—Brandan Henry presents a site-specific charcoal wall drawing that transforms Grizzly Grizzly’s gallery walls into both surface and subject. Known for his works on paper that frame solitary Black figures within expansive white voids, Henry extends this visual language into the architecture of the gallery itself. The white wall becomes not just a surface, but an active field of negative space, amplifying the figure’s quiet power and vulnerability. This gesture deepens his ongoing exploration of absence, visibility, and the politics of scale.

Henry’s practice is rooted in a critical inquiry of who gets to occupy space—particularly public space—and how temporary ownership of that space shapes identity, movement, and perception. By placing a single Black figure directly on the gallery wall, he engages the viewer in a subtle confrontation with presence: who is allowed to take up space, to linger, to be seen without performing?

Access: Interview with Brandan Henry and Theresa Rose by David Dempewolf