Jessie Henson uses materials associated with crafts and folk art to explore personal meanings of memory and loss. Her colorful stitches, materials and domestic objects are a playful exploration of fantasy and escape.  Henson has exhibited nationally, including in New York, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.  She received an MFA from Rutgers University and a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and Design. Henson has participated in the AIM program at the Bronx Museum of Art and was an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska.  She has also been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, supported with a full fellowship by the Joan Mitchell Foundation. In 2010 Henson was commissioned to create a memorial sculpture at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Jessie Henson was born and raised in Cincinnati and currently lives and works in New York City.

Through collecting objects, and accumulating stitches, lines or circles in drawings and sculptures, I am creating worlds to exist within.  My works attempt to negotiate the fragility and mystery of the world, while searching out the sublime and the possibility of wonder.

These pieces deal with the transformation of objects into something greater than their individual selves.  The objects I use often have individual histories, and are saturated with memory.  I like to play on this nostalgia while evoking a promise of renewal and inspiration by careful consideration of the placement and specificity of the objects.  My work has a strong sensitivity to tactility and delicacy.  I use scale in a way that invites the viewer to reflect on his or her own physical connection with the works as well as negotiate the emotional space that the work delineates.