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Li Henn

I work primarily with recycled materials. Through this work, several collections have come together using plastic bags and plastic packaging materials.

The prints are made by using plastic bags for monotype printing on paper, creating distinctive and diverse textures and graphic elements. The textures arise from the raw petroleum present within the plastic bags. The shapes, now visible on the image carrier, leave room for endless interpretation and imagination. I’ve tried to let the shapes and designs emerge on their own with minimal additional linework.

The works that I’ve titled Plastic2art combine elements of drawing and collage, creating the effect of a contemporary oil painting. I work with the texture, colour, and the physical changes that occur to the materials as they are heated. The raw materials are cut or ripped, heated and then pressed on to the paper or fabric backing. The melting plastic fuses directly with the canvas. The creative shapes that emerge depend on the quality of the packaging materials and the amount of heat that is applied. The plastic film can disintegrate to the point that only the colour pigments remain visible, or it can rest on the canvas creating the effect of a collage.

I love experimenting with these effects and new approaches to creating images using common place objects that many consider garbage after they’ve been used just once.

It fascinates me to guide these random processes of creation as much possible and to let myself be influenced by the changing effects that emerge each time.

  • Graduate of the Fine Arts Program at the University of the Arts in Bremen, Germany

  • Graduate of the University of Oldenburg in Art and German Language and Literature Studies

  • Teacher for visual arts and German language in Germany, Spain and Belgium

  •  Opened her studio and began freelance work as a visual artist in Cabanyal, Valencia, Spain in 2017
  • scholarship holder in the URBAN NATION Artist in Residence Program Berlin April – September 2021
    – September 2021

Exhibitions

2021

Final exhibition of the scholarship year # 5, Bülow 90 Berlin- Schöneberg, Give the neighborhood your face!

The alphabet of the pandemic (video 13:45 min), digitized in the House of History Bonn

2022

plastic2art (E), Kunstverein Norden

Admission to the GEDOK (Gemeinschaft der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfördernden e.V. Hamburg)

2023

Die Neuen (G), Producer Gallery GEDOK Hamburg

“…like sand by the sea…” (E) Kunstverein Stadtgalerie Sylt / Westerland

Guest studio at Plüschow Castle / Künstlerhaus des Landes Mecklenburg

2024

Triptych Die Unentbehrlichkeit der Landschaft – work with soil (E) Literaturhaus Uwe Johnson Klütz / Mecklenburg