Elsa Åkesson in Conversation with Artist, CJ HENDRY
CJ HENDRY is an Australian artist based in New York City. Working with the medium of pencils, the quality of her works has attracted international recognition as she draws large scale, hyper-realistic subject matters.
CJ HENDRY impresses many in the art world with the achievements she gained over the years, managing everything in-house with a great team.
MADE IN BED’s Editor-In-Chief, Elsa Åkesson speaks to CJ HENDRY about her art practice, how she has impressively managed to gain respectful recognition bypassing art galleries, and some of her future projects.
Elsa Åkesson: CJ HENDRY, thank you very much for being amongst us today. We are very excited to hear about your work practice and experience as an artist.
My first question to you is, how did your talent for drawing come about and when did you decide to make it your professional career?
CJ HENDRY: It wasn’t something I was fully aware of at the beginning. I went to university to study architecture and finance, so I didn’t think anything of art at all, but I always enjoyed drawing. I then realised that the subjects I studied in university weren’t for me. I knew I loved drawing, so I decided to drop out and focus on it. I started drawing for a year with no further intentions, I just really enjoyed doing it. I sold my wardrobe on eBay so I could buy materials.
During that year, people started to message me, enquiring about the works I was making. As I started to receive more and more interest from people wanting to purchase my works, I then realised that I could start living off my art little by little. It’s grown from there over the last 8 years.
EÅ: How did you decide you wanted to use coloured pencils for your works?
CJH: When I first started my practice, I just used ink. I would use black Japanese pens which I really loved, though it was a bit one dimensional in a way. I thought to myself how beautiful they would look if they were in colour. That then brought me to try coloured pencils. At the beginning, the shift was really hard, but with time I got better at it.
EÅ: How long does it take for you to make one artwork?
CJH: It depends on how big the piece is, but I don’t keep track anymore… a piece could take 20 hours or 200 hours, I don’t worry about the time though. For me it is done when I feel it is done. What I can tell you is that it does take many long hours and many months - that is just what hyperrealism is.
In terms of how many hours a day I draw, it varies. Some days I draw for 12 hours and other days I do not draw at all. It really depends on what I schedule for that day.
EÅ: What is your favourite part of being an artist?
CJH: Being an artist is a privilege. If I am in a position where I can choose to make art every day, continue to come up with crazy ideas and plan exhibitions, I am in such a privileged position. There is so much to enjoy about being an artist - being able to draw, having limitless ideas.
I am completely self-funded; I don’t need to rely on anyone, so I get to do things at my own pace and enjoy what I do.
EÅ: What is the most challenging part of being an artist for you today?
CJH: There are challenges every day. For example, Fedex might lose an artwork and it will be gone forever. There are small things that pop up every day that we need to handle, but I am very lucky to have a great team that helps me with it all.
EÅ: You organise many of the bigger exhibitions yourself, not through a gallery. Do you prefer managing your art yourself? Why?
CJH: Yes. I don’t spend much time looking at what other people are doing, thinking I should do it the same way. I do what works for me and I go for it.
From my experience, when you work with intermediary parties, you end up having too many things going wrong and you do not have complete control - you could call me a control freak, I guess.
I need complete control, from my ideas to their execution, so I do not work with brands or institutions - at least not yet. I do not tend to search for that because quite often it is a bit too slow, too many people with too many opinions. When it comes to exhibitions my opinion is the only one that counts. I do not care what people think I should do. Instead, I have an idea and I know how it should be done. I am also in a fortunate position where I can financially fund everything myself.
I do not work with art galleries at all currently. It may happen with the course of time, but for now I am not looking for that kind of relationship. There is a place for that, but I am a very unusual hybrid of an artist where the pace I work at is too fast.
Also, I do not think about the networking part. I have a great team; everyone knows their job and is really good at it. We all work hard - the network and reputation just follow automatically. If they do not, then that means I did not do a good job.
EÅ: How did you get to this stage in your career, where you could manage all your exhibitions yourself?
CJH: Initially, it was very difficult to get to this stage. My family was very supportive of me becoming an artist, but not financially.
What I have done differently to others over the course of 8 years is reinvested every single dollar back into my practice. The only reason I am able to continue to grow at the rate I have grown at and remain self-funded is due to the fact that I do not see the financial gain as a personal gain. Instead, I see it as a studio gain that I could reinvest further into bigger and crazier ideas. It is like a snowball effect - the ideas get bigger and bigger and so do the exhibitions.
EÅ: Was there a moment in your art career when you felt you were going to ‘make it’ in the art world? If so, when was it?
CJH: I don’t look at the position I am at right now. I just look at what I have to do next.
If I were to ever get to a stage of contentedness with where I am at - thinking to myself, ‘I am doing so well’ - then that wouldn’t be a very good position to be in because I wouldn’t strive to create great works anymore or think ahead. In other words, I would not be ‘hungry’ to do better and do more.
EÅ: As a very successful artist today, what would you say are your top tips to becoming a successful artist?
CJH: Do not get too connected to your work. Make work often and consistently. Some works won’t be so good, and some will be great. If you are not making the works to learn what is good and bad, then you will never get ahead. If you spend a whole year thinking of one piece, you are wasting your time. Spend your whole year making 50 or 100 pieces that are ‘okay’ and you might get a few amazing ones out of them.
If you try to replicate what someone else has done, you will end up failing. You need to listen to the type of person you are, see what strengths and weaknesses you have and figure out what’s best for you and what would work for you from there.
EÅ: What are the next goals you have planned for your art career?
CJH: For me, the overall goal has always been to create exhibitions that make people think about a subject matter or topic in a different way. My goal is to pick unusual ideas and use them in new, interesting ways... ideas you could experience in a way that could even be considered ‘bizarre’ I would say.
EÅ: You organise interactive activities in the city for people who admire your works. We love the initiative. Could you tell us more about that?
CJH: It was not planned. We got sued for copyright infringement from the Warhol Foundation and we had to get rid of the product. Instead of throwing it out, I thought a fun way to dispose of the product was to spray paint ‘Copyright Infringement Trash Only’ on it. We placed them around the city, and, accidentally, people ran around collecting them. People loved it. It has now become something we do every September. It wasn’t intentional at first, it just kind of happened.
EÅ: I hear you will have an exhibition in London coming up next year. Could you tell us a little bit more about this?
CJH: We renovated a church in East London. Our exhibition at the location is now due in April 2022.
Thank you very much CJ HENDRY. It was an absolute pleasure speaking to you. We will definitely keep an eye out for your upcoming exhibition in London.
Image Courtesy, CJ HENDRY
Visit CJ’s website and Instagram to find out more about her work.
Elsa Åkesson,
Editor-In-Chief, MADE IN BED