Headstand Performance

In May 2018, Geoffrey Hendricks performed “Headstands for Peace”, an event organized by Julie Evanoff in Washington Square Park.

Geoffrey Hendricks preparing for his headstand in Washington Square Park. Video by Jean Foos.
Geoffrey Hendricks performing his Headstand For Peace in Washington Square Park. Video by Jean Foos.

Photographs above by Sur Rodney Sur and Debbie Sutton.

Contact

Hello! You can reach me by e-mail me at hello [at] julieevanoff [dot] com.

I don’t have titles and details on each image, but I am happy to provide them and/or higher resolution images.

Also feel free to contact me about acquiring works. Thanks!

I build things up. I break things down. I do it again.

I build things up. I break things down. I do it again. 

My hand is the throughline in all of my work: drawings, prints, animations, and sculpture.

I draw, driven by the need to scrawl with force and intensity. I do it again. With 6B pencils onto toothy paper. I press hard. I erase. I break things down. I build things up. I do it again.

I draw human/animal hybrid characters that look like futuristic chimera, children’s nightmares, ancient gods, women gargoyles. They hold, confront, and bite each other. 

Sometimes I add colored pencils or markers. I build things up.

I make relief carvings. And sculptures. I work with wood. I work with wood that’s had a hard life holding water at the top of buildings in the New York skyline, wood that’s been tromped on by ten thousand feet in Coney Island, wood that’s ready to retire. I chew at this wood with chisels and saws. 

I cut out shapes, mostly angular: five sided heads, strong arms, beaks, a dozen legs, a hundred ears, jaws with teeth. I break things down. I sand. I build things up. I stain. I oil. The rough and the detailed. I do it again. 

I swap the arms the legs the beaks the heads. Another beak a third beak a forth beak the right beak. Frankensteining them until I recognize the monster on the bench as the monster in my head.

Some have wheels and roll. Some have nice toes. Heads spin. Eyes light up. The chomping rhino, the minimalist hippo, the stacking turtles, the elephant with a magnetic tail, the feminist cyborg with copper tits, the robot with light-up eyes: kids play with them, I do too.

I build things up. I break things down. I do it again. 

I make screen prints. 

I build things up. I start with geometry. I start with the square. I add a circle. I do it again. I squeegee ink onto the paper through the stencil. I add my hand. I overlap. I juxtapose. I assemble shapes until there is a planetscape of an alien world. Feminst Geometry. I do it again. I hold the paper, somewhat bent and worse with ware. There’s my hand. Always my hand. I end up with almost a square. I end up with a planet where the laws of geometry are slightly different. Feminst Geometry.

I break things down. I squeegee more ink. Noise patterns, unruly beasts, raucous birds, a menagerie of id behind sprocket holes of make-believe film. 

I make animations. I draw a picture on a piece of paper. I take a picture of that picture. I erase that picture on that piece of paper. I draw another picture on that piece of paper. I take another picture of that picture. I do it again. You can see the worn marks. I do it again.

I build things up. I break things down. I do it again.