Arms outstretched and standing confidently on a small crosspiece on a cement base, Hussey’s towering scarecrow is a dark figure that silhouettes against the greenery. The head is turned to the side and the hands droop from their frame. There is a sense of surveillance, ritual and dark energy. This ominous seer wears a rough black hessian simple coat fastened with ties, with a spiked black stoneware neckpiece, from which hangs a single hand.

Hussey’s artworks are often emotionally and physically raw, yet contrastingly beautiful and intricate, created with force through often paradoxically laboured mediums, including textile, glass, ceramic, paint and film. Whether through an expanding vocabulary of quasi-mythological symbols, or in embellished lines of text extracted from performative situations, he is fascinated with archetypal themes and ideas. Recently he has been combining mediums; hanging ceramics from textiles and building standard bearers with glassworks positioned atop them, that remind him of reliquaries. These devices bolster and enhance the sacredness of the fragment and in a similar manner the textile elements magnify the power of the sculptures attached to them.

Scarecrow II is one of a series of three tall unique garden works, each one with a differently patterned blown-glass head and hands and wearing an individually fashioned neckpiece.

Henry Hussey is a British artist born in London in 1990 where he still resides. Hussey studied Textiles at Chelsea College of Art before completing an MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art. His work is widely respected and has been exhibited in notable exhibitions including The Textiel Biennale 2017 at Museum Rijswijk in the Hague, a solo presentation at Art Central in Hong Kong, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2014 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Royal Academy London and Volta New York and the Young Talent Contemporary Prize at the Ingram Collection in 2016. Hussey has participated in residencies at La Vallonea, Tuscany, Italy in 2018 and will participate in a residency at Palazzo Monti, Milan in 2020. His work is held in collections worldwide including Simmons & Simmons, Hogan Lovells, The Groucho Club and Soho House.