Artist you need to know! Industry Interview with artist, Cj Hendry

CJ Hendry was born in South Africa, grew up in Australia and now lives in Brooklyn. She studied Architecture and was pursuing Finance & Accounting at University. She decided none of those were a good fit. She releases collections or series 1-2x per year.  What is the scribbling technique, and how did you come up with it? Accidentally stumbled into. She draws into a hyper realistic style and sometimes people mistake her work for photographs. It could be a mix of cross-hatching from when she was studying architecture, but she doesn’t have to lift her hand off the page How did you make the decision to drop out of college? How did this go over with your family? Come from a traditional old-school family. Her mom is a teacher and dad works in computers and they are both hard working. Her parents let her figure it out when she told them she wanted to drop out and pursue fine art.  Why did you decide to not work with an art gallery? What are the pros and cons of working with an art gallery? This wasn’t intentional. The goal was to work with a gallery, and is open to this at some point. Things have snowballed into the next thing, but at some point she will be open to working with a gallery. A pro is getting to work at the speed she wants to work at. She enjoys every aspect of running the process and has a very supportive team. Galleries have relationships and access to the right people, which can be a pro. Doesn’t like to push her art on others. Getting her art in a museum is part of the process. Artists focusing on getting pieces in a museum can be tricky because they will create museum art. Focus on making something that people haven’t seen before. Some artists tailor their career around a prize, which keeps them from progressing in a way they could.  With no formal art training, how did you discover you had a talent for this? Discovered the talent at age 11 and had the ability to draw. The school she went to was more professional qualifications and took a long time to realize art could be her full time career. How do you decide what to draw? Used to draw high-end subjects: draw Chanel bags or dip an Hermes Birkin Bag. Subjects are now slowly moving away from objects and are going more to abstract. It is determined by what she is interested in at the time, and wants to show a progression. The Marlboro Man series came about because she is fascinated with Richard Prince. He did something inspired by The Marlboro Man and she wondered why it had to be so masculine. So she drew cigarette butts with Chanel lipstick on the ends, because this is what brand she wears. It wasn’t fun to get the subject, but something she had to do to get the picture!  How long does it take to create a piece of your artwork? A couple of weeks or months. She is in the studio 7 days a week, and work all day long, so she can make the work quickly! How do you determine the pricing for your artwork? Something costs what people are prepared to pay. She only does 1 of 1, there are no replications, so there is value in that. She can only make so many works per year, and she is making less and less. There is a 2 or 3 year waiting list for her artwork. What is your view on collaborations? (Fashion brands, other artists, etc) They are great if it is the right partner. She collaborated with Christian Louboutin, which was a great experience. Last year, she drew Pantone chips, but she didn’t collaborate with Pantone  What direction do you want to go in? Produce as much art as possible or something different? Going to continue to make the shows and they will get bigger is what she can control. There are lots of people who can dictate where your career goes in the art world. She has goals, but she isn’t sure when