JenHen Designs

Jennifer Henley’s art work covers a range of media and methods. She began her creative journey with making handmade paper, using it to make collages, some with the addition of machine stitch. Around 2005 she discovered the exciting world of mixed media textile artists and the range of work that they produce.

Jennifer has explored dyeing and printing on fabric, needle felting, image transfer, monoprinting, collagraphs, asemic calligraphy and handmade books. A small fortune has been spent on workshops with teachers who are the leaders in their field either at Art Van Go, Knebworth; at the City Lit, London; summer schools with the Textile Study Group; and calligraphy as mark making with Massimo Polello in Tuscany. She has City & Guilds Certificates in Creative Sketchbooks, and in Media Techniques (Creative Computing).

Having enjoyed learning many processes and, after years of experimentation, Jennifer has returned to her first love, paper. Over time she has acquired a large stash of printed/painted papers and fabrics and uses these materials, as well as making new surfaces, to create collages, some incorporating calligraphic marks.

She is attracted to textures, line & shape and finds over thinking a work blocks the creative process. Working intuitively she responds to painted marks on the paper, building layers with printed/painted tissue.

The asemic calligraphy of Massimo Polello and Denise Lach is an inspiration together with the collage work of Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.