Biography

Henrik Hey was born in Denmark in 1950. He graduated from Denmark’s Design School in 1981. In 1983 he relocated to Utrecht in The Netherlands, where he has lived and worked since then. Henrik is teaching at the Faculty of Visual Design, Utrecht, as head of the silkscreen department.

In 2000 he was invited to take part in the Nagasawa Art Park printmaking program. The visit to Japan changed Hey’s technique for good. He switched to woodblock printmaking as the main expression of his work. Hey collaborated with Masahiro Takade.
Abstraction of nature plays an important role in his work. Hey’s work has been exhibited widely.

www.henrikhey.nl

Exhibition

Summer Rain/Spring Snow
Summer Rain / Spring Snow consists of 30 woodblock prints. All prints are printed in the traditional Japanese way called Mokuhanga.
That also means that the ink used are all water based.

The main theme of the Summer Rain part is connected to time and rain and is based on the poem ‘ Leaving ‘ from the poet Anton Korteweg. Raindrops are shown falling on lead and slowly building up.

Spring Snow is a project that deals with time and snow. How do we make the process of falling snow visible? For both series the concept deals with the reflection of time according to Zen. How do you endure time and can you make the experience tangible? How can you catch time and make it visible? The journey or the process of creating Summer Rain / Spring Snow can best be shown with a Zen thought which is beautifully represented by Yamoto Tsunemtomo.

“ There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment.
A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment.
If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue.”

In both of the series the firebird, the Phoenix, is present. She undergoes many metamorphoses on her long travels through rain and snow.