Northwestern College's Te Paske Gallery features exhibit by Minnesota artist

Northwestern College is opening its 2023–24 art exhibit season with a show by Minnesota artist Jessica Henderson.

“Look Am I” features dimensional artwork that examines the benefits and tensions created by the internet and social media. Henderson’s exhibit is on display through Oct. 13, with a public reception with the artist scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 5, at 4:30 p.m. 

Henderson is an artist, educator, graphic designer and mother living in St. Paul, where she is a professor of graphic design at Bethel University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in two-dimensional mixed media, print and bookmaking from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and her work has been featured in galleries that include the Burnet Gallery, the Soo Visual Arts Center, the Waiting Room, and the Soap Factory.

Working out of her backyard studio, Henderson employs a densely layered combination of digital and analog tools, processes and materials to explore themes of technology, embodiment and the inner life. Her computer and iPhone are the source for photos, screenshots, texts and other imagery that she manipulates to mirror the endlessly regenerating behavior of technology itself.

“I have a lot of questions about the ways these tools and devices have formed and are forming me,” she says. “The smartphone certainly provides many benefits, but it also entices me to consume, placate discomfort with distraction, and resist the limitations of time and space. It’s often in direct competition with the deeper and more complicated longings of my soul to contribute to the world through thoughtful creation and attentiveness. I work through these questions and tensions in my artmaking process.”

Northwestern’s Te Paske Gallery is located in the Thea G. Korver Visual Arts Center, on Highway 10 at 214 8th Street SW in Orange City. Gallery hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

Northwestern art students have had their work selected for off-campus juried exhibitions, won graphic design competitions and been chosen for elite internships. They're mentored by art faculty who maintain their professional practice while teaching, and they create in the well-equipped Korver Visual Arts Center.