Jessica R. HendersonArtist / Designer / Educator



Born in the 80’s, Henderson has lived two distinct lives. Her childhood and high school years were, for the most part, pre-internet. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 as she graduated college; heavily tethering the second half of her life to a smartphone and social media. Henderson has a lot of questions about the ways these tools and devices have formed/are forming her as she finds herself continuously navigating the tensions that they seem to create. The smartphone certainly provides many benefits, but it also entices one to consume, placate discomfort with distraction, and resist the limitations of time and space. These activities often feel in direct competition with the deeper and more complicated longings of her soul— to contribute to the world through thoughtful creation, attentiveness, and lean into the limitations of embodiment. With the ever-increasing pace of technological advancement, it is essential that  we critically evaluate how personhood is continually shaped and re-shaped by the adoption of each new tool and device.

Henderson works through these questions and tensions in her artmaking practice. Viewing her computer and phone as a digital archeological dig-site of sorts, these repositories are culled for photos, screenshots, texts and other source imagery that become autobiographical evidence and documentation of everyday life. Through abstracting, combining, documenting, distorting, re-processing, duplicating, and recombining these elements a visual language emerges that mirrors the endlessly regenerating behavior of technology itself. The work is primarily two-dimensional; utilizing digital and handmade processes like vinyl cutting, CNC routing, digital printing and screen printing in ways that are densely layered. Sparkly, metallic, reflective, slick surfaces are punctuated with dimensional interruptions, distortions and handmade marks that embody analog/digital tensions. 
Look, Look, There is Something.
October 2024
Walford Galleries, Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois



Solo exhibition comprised of 4 projects/series.

Look, Look, There is Something
Multi-dimensional installation spanning two walls: 15.5’ and 19’ long by 12’ high. Vinyl decals, custom-printed fabric, iron-on decals, upholstry foam, plywood, nature treasures.

Muchness & Manyness; Being Lived Elsewhere; We will Never Be Bored Again; A Foot in Several Worlds; A Very Deep Encounter
Printed fabric, iron-on decals, MDF, polyfill
25.5”x35.5”

A Phone, A Rock, A Tool, A Toy
Interactive collaborative project; blank CNC routed MDF “phones” decorated by friends and exhibition visitors
120+ phones; 3” x 6”

Alive & Clicking; Can’t Decide if I Like This; Couldn’t Load Image; Now What?
Letterpress prints, digital prints, vinyl decals
18”x24”

Finish This?; How Many Hours; This World is Not Real Life; Unsure Face; SO REALLLLL
Digital prints, vinyl decals
18” x 24”
“I can give into the distortions of the world, treating you as a project or as a subject-in-making for the empire of global capitalism. I can try to assimilate your play to my functionality. Turn all your toys into objects that make you grow smarter and more talented, or will distract you so that I can work. I can make my logic of work an all-encompassing logic that governs your world. Or I can try to yield to your way of play. Let it transform my work and reconnect me to a self that exceeds any function or goal.” - Natalie Cranes, Motherhood: A Confession

“Because our present habit of mind is governed by the calculus of consumerism and busyness, we are less frequently available to the exuberance of beauty.” - John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

“Yet one of the hallmarks of the Great Rewiring is that children and adolescents now spend far less time outside, and when they are outside, they are often looking at or thinking about their phones. If they encounter something beautiful, such as sunlight reflected on water, or cherry blossoms wafting on gentle spring breezes, their first instinct is to take a photograph or video, perhaps to post somewhere. Few are open to losing themselves in the moment…” - Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation





Small booklet accompanying the show can be viewed here.