‘Descended - an unsettling end’ follows directly from Henley’s solo exhibition in late 2021. Picking up from the installation piece ‘Descended’ and drawing from human and animal forms alongside visual cues from the Vanitas movement and classic Baroque Painting, He seeks to communicate the transience of organic matter, animals and bone in a state of constant metamorphosis. The heavily worked graphite pieces are layered and coupled with a light source with the aim to create translucent pillars or trees (in this case) that seem to be etched with the images and stories.

The portal-esc pieces that contain, as a whole and individually, a glimpse into the world around us. Perhaps not in this time frame but a far off future at the mercy of the many scenarios that could play out. The choice of a monochrome colour scheme helps to create a further feeling of seeing something that has, over time aged to become the raw parts of the intended image and what we are presented with is the ‘bones’ or very raw parts of the whole.

Overall, some may view these works in terms of morbidity or life and death and while this is a present theme in a lot of Henley’s works the same could be said for the celebration of life and nature. Either way these pieces offer the culmination of Henley’s current practice which is a constant state if experimentation and change.