(Feb. 9, 2017) Stylistically, Ocean City native Patrick Henry, 64, describes his five-decade career as a journey from the commercial and illustrative side of his youth into the impressionistic, painterly style he embraces today.
“I dance between the two still,” he said during an interview at his studio in Berlin on Tuesday. “I have to embrace that – that’s me.”
There is also a deeply spiritual side to Henry and, lately, a certain amount of political subtext that may or may not have to do with the recent Presidential election.
Last month Henry received more traffic on his Facebook page – reaching nearly 5,000 people – after he posted a new portrait of former President Barack Obama, titled “The Orator.”
One of seven children, Henry grew up on Sinepuxent Road, near the Ocean City airport.
He remembers, very early on, having the urge to create. As a child his medium was often crayons and paper.
“I would even take cardboard and draw images on it and then cut it up and make my own puzzles,” he said.
In third grade, his class would watch educational television programs about art. Afterwards, the teacher would ask Henry to stand up and “redirect the class on how to do the art lesson.”
He received his first set of oil paints when he was 14 and remembers the feeling of bringing something to life on canvas.
“It would move people to react one way or another,” he said. “Now, we’re talking about 50-some years of studying and seeing how I could apply these physical things – these scientific things – and putting them together to make something very spiritual that would move people. I think, in a way, that’s my calling – to show that side of the human factor in our lives.”
Henry sold his first painting as a 16-year-old sophomore in high school. A light, he said, went off.
“Not only can you do what you love, but you can make some money from it. How naïve was that?” he said with a laugh.
He set his sights on the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond – then known as a top art school – although he said college was not yet part of the culture where he grew up. His father, for instance, only had a sixth-grade education.
“We were fishermen. We were farmers. We were laborers,” he said. “That was your lot.”
Still, Henry was drawn to what he saw as greater cultural opportunities in Richmond. He moved there, but the move would be short lived.
“Not long after I left, my mother had called me and asked I me if would come back because there was an incident where there was an older lady who was murdered,” he said. “There was this fear of a group of guys preying on older women. So, I came back.”
Henry earned a degree in art education from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and taught at Stephen Decatur High School for two years, from 1976 to 1978. During that time, he also helped found the Worcester County Arts Council.
By all appearances Henry had succeeded in attending college and earning a steady job, but he possessed a restless spirit and felt pressure to do more. Henry constantly lived under the shadow of his father, who passed away at age 52 during a fishing accident.
“This man lived a life like he could’ve been 102,” Henry said. “He was just a Renaissance person – a masonry contractor and a chef, and he had two successful businesses [with a sixth-grade education].
“I had pressure to live up to the people who knew him,” he continued. “And I didn’t take the death [well] – I escaped into drugs and alcohol.”
Henry refers to that period of his life – roughly 1978 to 1983 – as “The Dark Ages.”
“I was drifting,” he said. “Back then you didn’t have counselors to help you through, so where do you take your grief? I had a spiritual realm, but I wasn’t nurtured enough to have the help that I sought.”
In his early 30’s, Henry had something of an awakening. He compared it to the moment in “The Lion King” when Simba, still grieving and in denial of his destiny, looks into a pool of water and sees his father’s reflection staring back at him.
“It was a moment where I realized, this is not where and who you should be – you’re destined for greater things than this,” Henry said.
Not long after, he met Velda, who would become his wife. The couple moved to Berlin in 1985 and was married in 1989.
Around that time, Henry also started to experience professional success as an artist. He opened his first studio, above the Odd Fellow’s building next to the Atlantic Hotel, and hosted a well-received show on the day after Thanksgiving that would later become the blueprint for the long-running Holiday Arts Night series in Berlin.
His own resurgence timed well with that of the hotel, and Henry was tasked with creating the new signage there.
“Things came together at appropriate times for me to be a part of the energy [of Berlin],” he said.
Then, tragedy struck again when several family members passed away in quick succession.
“I had a sequence of four family losses – a niece, my mother, a brother and a sister – and I got thrown in the middle of the dynamic and just got burned out and had to close the studio,” he said.
It would take almost a decade for him to find another space he liked, this time settling just outside of the downtown area, on Old Ocean City Boulevard, in what he calls his sanctuary, Henry Fine Arts.
“It took from ’06 to ’14 to find that space,” he said. “It’s in town, but it’s enough off the beaten path. People that really want to see my work – people that love art who want a moment to come by – it takes concerted effort.
“I love it. This, I hope, will be where I finish out my life and career,” he added.
His long career, he said, has in many ways been the best kind of therapy. During those times when he feels lost, he still turns to the canvas for comfort.
“Our culture doesn’t have the dynamics of going to a psychologist or psychiatrist – unfortunately it was looked at as a sense of weakness,” he said. “Without me realizing, art became where I could pour all my fear and grief. In doing that time passes, and I believe in that adage of how time can heal.
“It was a positive activity that I was doing – it wasn’t like jumping into drugs or alcohol,” Henry added. “I poured everything that was confusing and hurtful into my art.”
Ironically, Henry said he regularly posts images of those so-called therapeutic works on social media sites like Facebook, where the feedback is often, “that’s so peaceful.”
“I feel, in these unknown times right now, an even stronger calling for me to do even more – for me to get totally separated and to pour what I feel my conviction is about life and my experiences [into art],” he said.
Henry said the Obama portrait was something he had wanted to paint for more than a decade. In a way, he can trace its roots back even longer, to the sprawling Martin Luther King Jr. scene he painted in college, which now hangs over the workspace in his studio.
“Martin Luther King’s death was like the death of a lot of great people – you think, what now?” Henry said. “His death gave you a different perspective for what the man was about. He had an oratory style about him that would just arrest you, and I really attached to his philosophy of nonviolence.
“You didn’t have a person like that for a while,” Henry added. “You had a lot of wannabes.”
He said Obama first captivated him during the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when the then-senator from Illinois would give a speech that catapulted him onto the national spotlight. Henry admitted he was torn about Obama’s bid for president, four years later.
“I kinda wish he didn’t go in the political sphere, because I really liked what the man, Barack Obama, said. He really connected with my spirit of hope – of change,” Henry said. “I thought, it sounds nice, but it’s not really real.
“But even despite of all the setbacks and how Congress, during his tenure, blocked everything he desired, there was a dignity, there was a spirit of style that this man – he never got nasty,” Henry added. “I always wanted to do a painting of him, but I got ticked off by the way his image became commercialized. It was just something where my spirit said, ‘just wait – the time will come.’”
The image Henry used is a combination of several, including one from Obama’s farewell speech.
“He had a moment where he was stressing a point and his hands came before him, and I said, ‘that’s the image I want,’” Henry said.
He superimposed an oversized American flag behind the 44th president, Henry said, because Obama spoke for and represented a huge section of the country that had been left “out of the loop.”
“This man, I think, really hit a nerve with those people and made them look at themselves and stick their chests up a little more,” he said.
Reaction was overwhelming positive, leading Henry to create a limited series of 50 prints. The painting itself, which for now hangs in his studio, will be kept in his own, private collection.
“This is for me, and then when I go on for my wife and then my daughter, just like [his Martin Luther King, Jr. painting],” he said.
An African-American who grew up in rural Worcester County, Henry said he never felt like a “black painter.”
“The world wanted me to go there and it comes up, and I if I would say I’m not aware of my blackness [that’s not honest] because I’m a student of history and culture, and there are some dynamic things that go on in Africa that I am so proud of,” he said. “I’m proud of that heritage, but I know that I have other heritages in my system – in my DNA.
“It’s beyond race,” he continued. “Is that what God is going to look at when you make it over? All I do is I shake my head and I pray for those that take it there. If you want to take things to that narrow perspective, you’re lost.”
Asked about his legacy as a painter, Henry said one word: home.
“This place is so awesome,” he said. “Now I’m at that phase in my journey where I’m in my middle 60’s, I’m entering a stage where I don’t have to worry about all that running around. My base is here, so I want to focus on taking 50 years of my experience and putting my work in a context that gives a presence beyond a surface. It draws a person in, and for a few moments takes them out of this mental phase and connects with the spirit within. I feel as if that is a God-mandated thing for me to do.
“I’ve got my soldiers lined up,” Henry said, gesturing to a bucket of paintbrushes next to his easel.
For more information on Henry Fine Arts, visit www.henryfinearts.org or call 443-880-4746.
“I dance between the two still,” he said during an interview at his studio in Berlin on Tuesday. “I have to embrace that – that’s me.”
There is also a deeply spiritual side to Henry and, lately, a certain amount of political subtext that may or may not have to do with the recent Presidential election.
Last month Henry received more traffic on his Facebook page – reaching nearly 5,000 people – after he posted a new portrait of former President Barack Obama, titled “The Orator.”
One of seven children, Henry grew up on Sinepuxent Road, near the Ocean City airport.
He remembers, very early on, having the urge to create. As a child his medium was often crayons and paper.
“I would even take cardboard and draw images on it and then cut it up and make my own puzzles,” he said.
In third grade, his class would watch educational television programs about art. Afterwards, the teacher would ask Henry to stand up and “redirect the class on how to do the art lesson.”
He received his first set of oil paints when he was 14 and remembers the feeling of bringing something to life on canvas.
“It would move people to react one way or another,” he said. “Now, we’re talking about 50-some years of studying and seeing how I could apply these physical things – these scientific things – and putting them together to make something very spiritual that would move people. I think, in a way, that’s my calling – to show that side of the human factor in our lives.”
Henry sold his first painting as a 16-year-old sophomore in high school. A light, he said, went off.
“Not only can you do what you love, but you can make some money from it. How naïve was that?” he said with a laugh.
He set his sights on the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond – then known as a top art school – although he said college was not yet part of the culture where he grew up. His father, for instance, only had a sixth-grade education.
“We were fishermen. We were farmers. We were laborers,” he said. “That was your lot.”
Still, Henry was drawn to what he saw as greater cultural opportunities in Richmond. He moved there, but the move would be short lived.
“Not long after I left, my mother had called me and asked I me if would come back because there was an incident where there was an older lady who was murdered,” he said. “There was this fear of a group of guys preying on older women. So, I came back.”
Henry earned a degree in art education from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and taught at Stephen Decatur High School for two years, from 1976 to 1978. During that time, he also helped found the Worcester County Arts Council.
By all appearances Henry had succeeded in attending college and earning a steady job, but he possessed a restless spirit and felt pressure to do more. Henry constantly lived under the shadow of his father, who passed away at age 52 during a fishing accident.
“This man lived a life like he could’ve been 102,” Henry said. “He was just a Renaissance person – a masonry contractor and a chef, and he had two successful businesses [with a sixth-grade education].
“I had pressure to live up to the people who knew him,” he continued. “And I didn’t take the death [well] – I escaped into drugs and alcohol.”
Henry refers to that period of his life – roughly 1978 to 1983 – as “The Dark Ages.”
“I was drifting,” he said. “Back then you didn’t have counselors to help you through, so where do you take your grief? I had a spiritual realm, but I wasn’t nurtured enough to have the help that I sought.”
In his early 30’s, Henry had something of an awakening. He compared it to the moment in “The Lion King” when Simba, still grieving and in denial of his destiny, looks into a pool of water and sees his father’s reflection staring back at him.
“It was a moment where I realized, this is not where and who you should be – you’re destined for greater things than this,” Henry said.
Not long after, he met Velda, who would become his wife. The couple moved to Berlin in 1985 and was married in 1989.
Around that time, Henry also started to experience professional success as an artist. He opened his first studio, above the Odd Fellow’s building next to the Atlantic Hotel, and hosted a well-received show on the day after Thanksgiving that would later become the blueprint for the long-running Holiday Arts Night series in Berlin.
His own resurgence timed well with that of the hotel, and Henry was tasked with creating the new signage there.
“Things came together at appropriate times for me to be a part of the energy [of Berlin],” he said.
Then, tragedy struck again when several family members passed away in quick succession.
“I had a sequence of four family losses – a niece, my mother, a brother and a sister – and I got thrown in the middle of the dynamic and just got burned out and had to close the studio,” he said.
It would take almost a decade for him to find another space he liked, this time settling just outside of the downtown area, on Old Ocean City Boulevard, in what he calls his sanctuary, Henry Fine Arts.
“It took from ’06 to ’14 to find that space,” he said. “It’s in town, but it’s enough off the beaten path. People that really want to see my work – people that love art who want a moment to come by – it takes concerted effort.
“I love it. This, I hope, will be where I finish out my life and career,” he added.
His long career, he said, has in many ways been the best kind of therapy. During those times when he feels lost, he still turns to the canvas for comfort.
“Our culture doesn’t have the dynamics of going to a psychologist or psychiatrist – unfortunately it was looked at as a sense of weakness,” he said. “Without me realizing, art became where I could pour all my fear and grief. In doing that time passes, and I believe in that adage of how time can heal.
“It was a positive activity that I was doing – it wasn’t like jumping into drugs or alcohol,” Henry added. “I poured everything that was confusing and hurtful into my art.”
Ironically, Henry said he regularly posts images of those so-called therapeutic works on social media sites like Facebook, where the feedback is often, “that’s so peaceful.”
“I feel, in these unknown times right now, an even stronger calling for me to do even more – for me to get totally separated and to pour what I feel my conviction is about life and my experiences [into art],” he said.
Henry said the Obama portrait was something he had wanted to paint for more than a decade. In a way, he can trace its roots back even longer, to the sprawling Martin Luther King Jr. scene he painted in college, which now hangs over the workspace in his studio.
“Martin Luther King’s death was like the death of a lot of great people – you think, what now?” Henry said. “His death gave you a different perspective for what the man was about. He had an oratory style about him that would just arrest you, and I really attached to his philosophy of nonviolence.
“You didn’t have a person like that for a while,” Henry added. “You had a lot of wannabes.”
He said Obama first captivated him during the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when the then-senator from Illinois would give a speech that catapulted him onto the national spotlight. Henry admitted he was torn about Obama’s bid for president, four years later.
“I kinda wish he didn’t go in the political sphere, because I really liked what the man, Barack Obama, said. He really connected with my spirit of hope – of change,” Henry said. “I thought, it sounds nice, but it’s not really real.
“But even despite of all the setbacks and how Congress, during his tenure, blocked everything he desired, there was a dignity, there was a spirit of style that this man – he never got nasty,” Henry added. “I always wanted to do a painting of him, but I got ticked off by the way his image became commercialized. It was just something where my spirit said, ‘just wait – the time will come.’”
The image Henry used is a combination of several, including one from Obama’s farewell speech.
“He had a moment where he was stressing a point and his hands came before him, and I said, ‘that’s the image I want,’” Henry said.
He superimposed an oversized American flag behind the 44th president, Henry said, because Obama spoke for and represented a huge section of the country that had been left “out of the loop.”
“This man, I think, really hit a nerve with those people and made them look at themselves and stick their chests up a little more,” he said.
Reaction was overwhelming positive, leading Henry to create a limited series of 50 prints. The painting itself, which for now hangs in his studio, will be kept in his own, private collection.
“This is for me, and then when I go on for my wife and then my daughter, just like [his Martin Luther King, Jr. painting],” he said.
An African-American who grew up in rural Worcester County, Henry said he never felt like a “black painter.”
“The world wanted me to go there and it comes up, and I if I would say I’m not aware of my blackness [that’s not honest] because I’m a student of history and culture, and there are some dynamic things that go on in Africa that I am so proud of,” he said. “I’m proud of that heritage, but I know that I have other heritages in my system – in my DNA.
“It’s beyond race,” he continued. “Is that what God is going to look at when you make it over? All I do is I shake my head and I pray for those that take it there. If you want to take things to that narrow perspective, you’re lost.”
Asked about his legacy as a painter, Henry said one word: home.
“This place is so awesome,” he said. “Now I’m at that phase in my journey where I’m in my middle 60’s, I’m entering a stage where I don’t have to worry about all that running around. My base is here, so I want to focus on taking 50 years of my experience and putting my work in a context that gives a presence beyond a surface. It draws a person in, and for a few moments takes them out of this mental phase and connects with the spirit within. I feel as if that is a God-mandated thing for me to do.
“I’ve got my soldiers lined up,” Henry said, gesturing to a bucket of paintbrushes next to his easel.
For more information on Henry Fine Arts, visit www.henryfinearts.org or call 443-880-4746.