Henry Mellissa Gordon at the Annex Gallery – Once We Were Birds

October 4, 2022

By Chris Drost

Visitors to the Annex Gallery at A Place for the Arts on Bridge St. West in Bancroft this October, will be treated to another imaginative exhibition by artist, Henry Melissa Gordon. Once We Were Birds is described as a visual expression of the artist’s long-time study of dreaming.

Gordon explores dreaming in her drawings and paintings as a “dance between our collective human consciousness and our individual consciousness.”

Henry manages to channel mysterious, layered images that allow this process of artmaking to be “random, but not random.” The idea, according to Gordon, “is that every thought, feeling and action is impactful, and comes from and returns to a vast web of interconnection.”

The images the artist presents represent the Earth’s inhabitants in relationship as they continue to dream their shared past, present and future together.

Gordon also draws on her fascination with “the process of unfathomable, unknowable cosmic evolution, as well as the small passing moments of each day.”

The artist describes her work as “visual poems.”

Gordon’s early life was in South Africa before immigrating to Canada as a child. After completing a Masters of Fine Art at the University of Waterloo in 1999, she went on what she describes as “a long healing journey and lived with gratitude for many years near Bancroft.”

Gordon worked part-time as an artist and at Grail Springs Retreat Centre as a workshop facilitator and life coach for a number of years. She also collaborated with The Samadhi Centre in Boulter, creating workshops that included meditation and deep heart-opening experiences in nature. She also spent seven years as a volunteer at the Anahata Horse Centre, a horse rescue facility, outside Bancroft and co-created a horse healing program for children with autism.

In 2021, Gordon moved back to the Waterloo area and is happy to be establishing a full-time art practice.

The exhibition is at the Annex Gallery from Oct. 1 till Oct. 30.