NELSON HENRICKS

TIME PASSES

2013

Time passes

No place is as real as this room.
I imagine my apartment when I am not there.
The silent, empty rooms.

They write in order to disappear. This is a considerable task. To transfer one's self on to paper. Pages accumulate into books. Volume after volume. The page greets the pen amicably, hungrily, ceaselessly, wearily. Space contracts to this fluttering interval between the nib of the pen and the white, lined expanse of the page. The pen dives in—swirls, dots, crosses, dashes—comes up for air, dives back in again. The ink blazes like fireworks at dusk, glistening oily blue and wet, then falling flat and black as ashes.

No place is as real as this room.

Biography

Nelson Henricks was born in Bow Island, Alberta and is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art (1986). He moved to Montreal in 1991, where he received a BFA from Concordia University (1994). Henricks lives and works in Montreal, where he has taught art history and video production at Concordia University, McGill University, UQAM and Université de Montréal. A musician, writer, curator and artist, Henricks is best known for his videotapes and video installations, which have been exhibited worldwide. His video work was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as part of the Video Viewpoints series in 2000. His writings have been published in exhibition catalogues, magazines and in several anthologies. Henricks was the recipient of the Bell Canada Award in Video Art in 2002 and the Board of Governors’ Alumni Award of Excellence from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2005. A mid-career retrospective of his work was presented at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery in Montreal in 2010.