THE ARTS Secret Doorways   In his paintings, Taos artist Jackson Hensley seeks a passage to the inner world.   By Sarah Deats Hensley Gallery Southwest, at 311 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, is a short walk north from the main plaza in Taos. The front of the gallery is filled with works in a variety of media and styles; the large back room serves as both studio and  exhibition area for the paintings of Jackson Hensley himself. This arrangement gives visitors the opportunity to see Hensley's works at every stage in the process of their creation. On the easel is the piece he is working on at the moment; on the walls are finished paintings as well as ones that will receive further work at a later time. The subjects of Hensley's images vary widely, but there is one element that appears in almost all of them. If you look closely and long enough, you will see something in the painting that suggests a kind of doorway, a secret passage to another world, the inner world of the soul. Hensley himself notes that while his paintings are outwardly about landscapes or people, they are really about his own thoughts and perceptions, his own view of the world. Hensley is not interested in reproducing a particular scene with photographic accuracy-- for that, he says you might as well just take a photograph and be done with it. Rather he is interested in interpreting the scene he paints through the lens of his own point of view, his own philosophy. For him this is the true artist's life, which requires a large dose of solitude to allow the soul its time and space to surface, as well as a good  deal of hard work to bring the soul's content to form on the canvas. The solitude includes forays into the countryside on foot, on horseback, or in the car to find places that can provide the basis for a painting. The hard work involves many of the traditional methods of he serious painter: making sketches and studies, starting with as many ideas as possible and gradually refining or "editing" the scene to reflect the particular view he is interested in depicting. Some paintings may grow quickly and reach maturity in only a few hours; others take months or even years to attain their final form. The element that almost always finds a place in the ultimate composition of Henley's paintings is the suggestion of a passageway or doorway. In his gallery/studio, visitors can see a lovely study for "The Prayer," a large oil painting now in the collection of the Leanin' Tree Museum in Colorado. The light in the smaller study is concentrated on a white church that occupies a large part of the foreground. Toward the right side of the canvas is an area that is darker and a bit mysterious, suggesting a secret entryway to the building. In "Fall," a view through a stand of trees reveals an open space and sweep of sky. The placement of the trees invites the viewer to step between them and see what is to be found in the open area beyond. These distant secrets are not revealed in the painting; rather the subject is the process of discovery itself. Sometimes the doorway is more overt, as in Hensley's portrait of a beautiful wall and gate in "Shadows," the deepest shadows fall onto the gate itself, suggesting the presence of the unknown. Thick foliage rising behind the wall reinforces this feeling of a world waiting to be explored. His larger canvases, such as "Spring," often include a diagonal trail or waterway or cleft that leads the viewer's eye upward and back into the deeper recesses of the landscape. Always there is the sense of being led into new territory. The doorway is expressed in a more directly mystical way in "The Song," a large oil on panel that depicts several people looking up toward a large rose suspended in mid-air. The rose and its contents (a child's face and a tiny, radiant fairy-like creature) clearly belong to another realm, one that suggests spiritual revelation. Revelation is perhaps the most compelling passageway of all, a direct path to a new perception or a brief glimpse into eternity. At Hensley Gallery Southwest, Jackson Hensley's finished works and pieces in progress show clearly the way in which he negotiates the complicated passageways of an artist's life and work. For Hensley this journey is central to artistic life, "the journey each is born into." The many doorways he has opened along the way are expressed in his paintings and reflect the essence of his life and times. Doorways…  The secret to great paintings and life, the answer is never ours. Like all else the expression is nothing, the key is the unlocking of the soul.   Jackson M. Hensley~ _____________________   Hensley gallery Southwest is located at 1103 North Pueblo Rd, El Prado, New Mexico 87529 Hours 10:00-5:00 Monday-Saturday and 1:00-3:00 Sunday. FOCUS/SANTA FE/APRIL/MAY 2002

Pages From An Artist's Journal   Each painting by Jackson Hensley reflects a reverence for the world around him.     By Sarah Becker In Jackson Hensley's oil paintings, trees bend toward the light, clouds threaten to downpour and sunbeams dance on mountain crests. These dramatic elements of nature act as visual metaphors that reveal a moment in the artist's life and reflect a man who has great reverence for the world around him. "My art is totally evolving around my life," says Hensley, whose piercing blue eyes are accented by his white hair and sunburn. "My paintings reflect each day of it. I'm not an illustrator of events; I'm more of a painter of my own life and times, the people I'm involved with and the landscape that surrounds us." In "Crossroads," For example, a painting in the collection of the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Ohio, the artist depicts the sun rising over a mountain at left and illuminating a fork in the road below. As Hensley clarifies, the scene, with the road at right leading toward the unknown, is symbolic of his own transition into a new way of life after the death of his first wife in 1989. While nature may be menacing at times in his paintings, all of his works contain signs of hope-of better times ahead. "I always try to paint the goodness in life, rather than the dark side," Hensley says. "I'm not saying that the dark side doesn't exist, but there's no reason to repeat it: there's enough sorrow in this world without trying to recreate it in art." For instance, Hensley provides a positive reading of Good Friday in "Santa Fe Hills", a work that was recently acquired by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Here, blooming wisteria climb up a cross that is haloed by a line of flame-like cottonwoods. The painter explains why he filled the painting with light hues: "I was so tired of people looking at Good Friday as a tragic event. It seemed to me that it was just the opposite." While few works contain actual Christian symbols, most of Hensley's paintings have a mystical air that mirrors his spiritual outlook on the world. The painter achieves this tone with his dexterous handling of light and shadow: In landscapes such as "Aspens," the artist captures a sudden burst of sunlight streaming across a forest, setting off the golden treetops from the extreme darkness below. Another way Hensley suffuses his oils with an otherworldly quality is by creating a sfumato background a la Leonardo, where tones fuse together into a haze. To build this special atmospheric quality,  he layers hundreds of transparent glazes. He mixes the oils with a rare medium, once used by Titian and Rubens, called Maroger that provides the illusion that a light is shining from within the canvas at the viewer. According to Hensley, Maroger is highly toxic, but it produces the finest effects. "Spring Runoff", a scene of a river just north of Taos, demonstrates his effective use of sfumato, where a cloud of moisture appears to be rising in the distance. The light, caressing the tree at right, also adds to the mystical mood. To capture a sudden beam of light or a sprinkle of rain, Hensley, like a doctor or actor, prepares. Rather than launch into a large oil painting, he produces dozens of watercolor studies of a site until he has every detail imprinted in his mind. Just like a scientist, he takes great pains to research the flowers and grasses that are the subjects of his work. He says, "I require myself to know the different grasses that grow in the field where I paint, the time of year, and how the wind is blowing because these factors will influence how the grasses lie." Then, back at his studio, he selects the best aspects of the studies and, working the entire canvas, he combines them into one large oil. While a single study may take a few days, Hensley spends several months-and sometimes years- on a large oil Fundamental to Hensley's preparation is the time he spends alone working en plein air or walking on his property south of Santa Fe. The key to painting, he says, is taking the time to look inward: "Unless you take the time to know yourself, it's hard to express yourself and if you can't express yourself, how in the world can you paint? In fact he treasure his solitude to the point that he rarely travels and never participates in national exhibits-"I quit doing national shows in the sixties," he says. "I don't do them because I'm more concerned about being receptive of that one moment that will make the next painting." In addition to laying down the ground work for each piece, Hensley sees his paintings through to completion-to selecting the finest European and American frames he can find.  "I've always gone out and gotten the best frames I could afford," he says.  "It doesn't make sense to work on a painting sometimes months or years and then put a strip around it." Years ago, he built his own frames; now he designs and oversees their production. Hensley works an average of seventy to eighty hours a week. Those few spare moments are spent with his wife, goldsmith Tresa Vorenberg Hensley, children, grandchildren, eleven dogs, and six horses. "Tree's Garden," a summer scene of cactus and junipers, celebrates the time he and Tresa spend riding their horses in the foothills south of Santa Fe. In the artist's words, "That painting has very little to do with the cactus and the junipers-that's where we ride and seem to be more centered in life." For Jackson Hensley, each painting is a page from his journal; the are personal revelations on canvas that together compose one artist's journey. Jackson M. Hensley's paintings contain the magic and mystery of a land that time forgot. His works are decidedly marked in a broad humanistic conception with a life-affirming love for un-harnessed nature. Broad, sweeping horizons; brooding intimate storms; silence, and the never ceasing glimmer of light. These visions, both epic in scale and theme, are prevalent throughout his works. __________   FOCUS/SANTA FE/OCTOBER/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1993

"Today when most artists have discarded the image of things seen and painting is no longer representational, the authoritative realism of Jackson Hensley commands both respect and admiration. His distinctive landscapes range in mood from the lyrical to the dramatic. Though his chief pre-occupation is with the New Mexico scene, he occasionally paints a portrait figure sometimes using the landscape as a background. Those he has done of his own children have a poignant charm not often seen today."   Andrew Dasburg~ Southwest Art 1987

A  Thoroughfare For Freedom Beat   Jackson M. Hensley has spent most of his life in his native state, New Mexico, and paints its landscape with a passion of intimate knowledge. Encouraged by the late artist Peter Hurd, Hensley received his art training in New York City at the National Academy of Design where he was taught classic traditions in both materials and concepts. He seeks a timeless, enduring quality in his work because "these qualities reflect the great truths of man and nature."   "Landscape painting, for me, is the combining of the classical, based on the great traditions in art, with meaningful images representing and reflecting my own life and times. Personally, I am not interested in the perfect landscape. Photo paintings hold no meaning and the projection of images on canvases are insulting to the intellect. My work reflects a struggle for expression by continuous and sustained effort. Great works of art are not great due to a quick brush stroke. My personal statement and vision are simply my life and times and if I am successful, it is because I reflect such."   Jackson M. Hensley~   WESTERN ART Digest, March/April 1986

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