While You Sleep – Michael Henley

While You Sleep, an exhibition of original works by Michael Henley, is presented by The Muse Gallery, and continues his ongoing investigation and creation of work centred around the natural world, the figure, and a deep dive into the obscure and macabre. Combining these elements with a strict monochrome palette and limited materials (graphite, ink, light), Henley works to blend the human form (or select parts of it) with the beauty of the natural and animal world. He creates dark, highly detailed macabre figurative pieces which seem to echo larger worlds or perhaps dreamscapes.

Rooted in a large and varying amount of visual research, Henley finds inspiration within the anatomical and animal worlds; he then creates visual links between these various elements, recreating muscle and tissue with the malleable forms of snakes and spiders, suspending towering totems of bone and animal that seem to float and hover in a doorway, or grounding birds — trapping them within light and layers of delicate paper in a wall-mounted, framed ossuary. Perhaps all suggesting a landscape only a step away.

While You Sleep aims to anchor these artworks to a specific time and place — a feeling that while you sleep through the various stages of daily life, the world carries on without you. The stage changes and the world along with it; these works reflect on how we sleep on life and let it pass us by — how stillness and movement can exist simultaneously, and that perhaps, in some way, the paths of events can be traced across our bodies long after we’re gone. And while we go about our days — working, cooking, sleeping — the world slowly dies around us.

Henley (b.1986) is a London-based visual artist. Originally trained as an illustrator, he now seeks to relearn and explore the fine art world. He blends highly detailed drawing and ink painting with gothic, tattoo and alternative culture, referencing a wide range of inspirational materials — from the visual to music and, in some cases, dreams — to create his pieces. This is Henley’s second exhibition with The Muse, and along with this independent gallery, he has also had the privilege to exhibit across London (Jealous Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, The London Art Fair, etc.), along with exhibitions in the US (Brassworks Gallery, Mortal Machine Gallery, Portal, New York), various curated online exhibitions, and he will soon be featured in the first annual Obscura Art Fair in Barcelona.

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