The lemonstreet gallery is delighted to host a solo show of new paintings by Northern Irish artist Diane Henshaw

The Exhibition will run from 17th May 2007 until 16th June 2007

Henshaw was awarded a residency to the Sanskriti Kendra Foundation in India on a Tyrone Guthrie Centre International Exchange for artists during 2006 and this is the resulting body of work.

Diane Henshaw graduated with a Degree in Fine Art from the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1995 and a Master’s in Fine Art from UUB in 2000. She now lives and works both as a Visual Artist and as the Arts Officer for Fermanagh District Council. Originally from Islandmagee in Co. Antrim, Henshaw practised in Queen Street Studios in Belfast for just under a decade before moving to Fermanagh.

Henshaw deals with the abstract and has an obsession with searching for the perfect line. Her work, known for its pared-down lines and formulated composition, has developed a new entourage of blasting hues and tones using a rich assortment of line, print, collage and form. Henshaw is synonymous with the use of gestured line and process-based work and focuses on the apparent and the banal, her treatment of abstraction being stylised and methodical. In the artist’s own words:

"My current practice deals primarily with abstraction and focuses on the banal, memory drawing - using ideologies in regard to who, what, where, when, why - dealing with opposites as a mode of making work."

Drawings focus on dematerialised matter - peeling layers of paint, grease on rickshaw-drivers’ shirts, dusty road-dirt on skin, psychological discord, absence, reclaiming space, decay, emptiness - stripping back the essentials of painting and line to its rawest state.