Don Henson, Assistant Professor

Don Henson, from Houston, TX, before becoming an artist was a collegiate and professional football player. After his athletic career was cut short by injury, Don returned to his studies and went on to receive his B.F.A. from Sam Houston State University and an M.F.A. from Kent State University.  In 2010 Don became Assistant Professor and area coordinator of Sculpture at UL Lafayette. His previous positions include Postdoctoral Research Fellow for Faculty Diversity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Visiting Professor of Sculpture at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. His sculpture has been exhibited at the Sculpture Center, Cleveland, Ohio, Allcott Gallery of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, WCO Open Center in New York, Art League of Houston, Houston, Texas, and various galleries in Kent, Akron, and Cleveland, Ohio. His Sculpture is included in Dona Z. Meilach’s Ironwork Today: Inside and Out (2006).

In my artwork I seek to create a dialogue between the popular culture genre of science fiction and contemporary sculptural concerns through the synthesis of sci-fi aesthetics with formal object making. My work combines the organic and the manmade and focuses on the problematic relationship between our own lived experience and our fantasies for the future. I am interested in the possibilities of new forms created by exploring the relationship of what we know and have and what we dream and create.