Artist: Belynda Henry

Findlay Galleries presents Living Palette, a major exhibition of new paintings by the distinguished Australian artist Belynda Henry. This presentation marks her most extensive showing in the United States to date and her third solo exhibition with the gallery, following acclaimed presentations in Palm Beach and New York.

Widely recognized as one of Australia’s leading contemporary landscape painters and a multiple finalist for both the Wynne and Archibald Prizes, Henry brings to her art a refined synthesis of observation and emotion. Living and working in a lush valley north of Sydney, she draws continual inspiration from the natural world—the subtle shifts of light, the rhythms of the seasons, and the quiet resonance of the landscape.

Henry employs a distinctive technique that combines oil and wax, built up in multiple layers to create surfaces of remarkable depth and tactility. The result is a body of work with an unmistakably earthy presence. Her palette of soft pastels, enlivened by luminous bursts of color, conveys both serenity and vitality. Through her loose, layered application, Henry achieves a graceful interplay between abstraction and landscape, evoking movement, distance, and the passage of time.

In Living Palette, Henry deepens her exploration of the dialogue between abstraction and the natural world. Her process begins outdoors, through plein-air observation, and evolves in the studio, where memory, emotion, and intuition re-imagine what she has seen. The result is an expressive language of color and form that transcends depiction, transforming direct experience
into atmosphere.

Each painting embodies Henry’s sense of happiness and wonder—qualities that are felt rather than declared. The vitality within her work emerges organically from her engagement with nature and from her belief that painting is a living conversation between artist, subject, and viewer.

To live with these paintings is to share in that vitality. Their presence fills a space with quiet energy, inviting reflection and renewal. Joy and beauty here are not static ideals, but ever-shifting forces—alive in color, texture, and the spirit that shaped them.