Show notes
CJ Hendry was born in South Africa, grew up in Australia and now lives in Brooklyn. She studied Architecture and was pursuing Finance & Accounting at University. She decided none of those were a good fit. She releases collections or series 1-2x per year.
- What is the scribbling technique, and how did you come up with it?
- Accidentally stumbled into. She draws into a hyper realistic style and sometimes people mistake her work for photographs. It could be a mix of cross-hatching from when she was studying architecture, but she doesn’t have to lift her hand off the page
- How did you make the decision to drop out of college? How did this go over with your family?
- Come from a traditional old-school family. Her mom is a teacher and dad works in computers and they are both hard working. Her parents let her figure it out when she told them she wanted to drop out and pursue fine art.
- Why did you decide to not work with an art gallery? What are the pros and cons of working with an art gallery?
- This wasn’t intentional. The goal was to work with a gallery, and is open to this at some point. Things have snowballed into the next thing, but at some point she will be open to working with a gallery. A pro is getting to work at the speed she wants to work at. She enjoys every aspect of running the process and has a very supportive team. Galleries have relationships and access to the right people, which can be a pro. Doesn’t like to push her art on others. Getting her art in a museum is part of the process. Artists focusing on getting pieces in a museum can be tricky because they will create museum art. Focus on making something that people haven’t seen before. Some artists tailor their career around a prize, which keeps them from progressing in a way they could.
- With no formal art training, how did you discover you had a talent for this?
- Discovered the talent at age 11 and had the ability to draw. The school she went to was more professional qualifications and took a long time to realize art could be her full time career.
- How do you decide what to draw?
- Used to draw high-end subjects: draw Chanel bags or dip an Hermes Birkin Bag. Subjects are now slowly moving away from objects and are going more to abstract. It is determined by what she is interested in at the time, and wants to show a progression. The Marlboro Man series came about because she is fascinated with Richard Prince. He did something inspired by The Marlboro Man and she wondered why it had to be so masculine. So she drew cigarette butts with Chanel lipstick on the ends, because this is what brand she wears. It wasn’t fun to get the subject, but something she had to do to get the picture!
- How long does it take to create a piece of your artwork?
- A couple of weeks or months. She is in the studio 7 days a week, and work all day long, so she can make the work quickly!
- How do you determine the pricing for your artwork?
- Something costs what people are prepared to pay. She only does 1 of 1, there are no replications, so there is value in that. She can only make so many works per year, and she is making less and less. There is a 2 or 3 year waiting list for her artwork.
- What is your view on collaborations? (Fashion brands, other artists, etc)
- They are great if it is the right partner. She collaborated with Christian Louboutin, which was a great experience. Last year, she drew Pantone chips, but she didn’t collaborate with Pantone
- What direction do you want to go in? Produce as much art as possible or something different?
- Going to continue to make the shows and they will get bigger is what she can control. There are lots of people who can dictate where your career goes in the art world. She has goals, but she isn’t sure when or how it’ll happen.
- What does it mean to be a female artist today?
- Make great work, don’t think of it as female vs. male
- What mediums do you want to work in besides drawing?
- Starting to do more installations. Hyper realism is something that looks like a photograph. Installation – no drawings on the wall, will be something in the room you may interact with.
- How did you grow your social media following?
- Organic growth. Make great art and they will come. Make the art shows wild.
- How do you promote yourself and your artwork?
- Shows the process of the artwork, and not much else!
- Do you prefer to work in black & white or color?
- At first, it had to be black & white. She is a bit of a minimalist so would buy something super colorful or black & white. Her mind has been opened up into possibilities she never thought of since starting to using color like public installations, etc.
- Where do you get your colored pencils?
- Online.
- Do you really have a box called the pencil graveyard?
- Collect the stubs of the colored pencils she finished using.
- What is it like navigating the waters of what is personal artwork vs. a commercial piece?
- She makes artwork because she loves it, and always keeps one piece. She drew some Warhol Polaroid’s, crumbled them and redrew them, but the problem was putting it on a t-shirt, you can’t make money off of celebrities faces.
- How could someone acquire a piece of your art?
- Email her studio director and you’ll get added to the waitlist. When there is a series coming up, current collectors get first opportunity to collect and whatever is left 4-5 new collectors could have the opportunity to purchase. Sell them online with a private link and they will go on sale at a certain date and time.
- Do you take commissions?
- Yes, for two weeks in March. She would not create things unless she is passionate about the work.
- Do you invest the money you make from selling your artwork back into your business? How much do you decide to invest vs. keep?
- Most gets reinvested back in the business; More money, more problems! There is no sign of slowing down, and she knows things will get bigger and bigger because she will make it happen! Hyper realism isn’t cool right now in the art world, and she is okay with that.
- What does a day look like for you?
- Get up, go on a run with her dog, in the studio at 7am and stay until 10pm. A big event is going out to dinner! Days are structured and organized, which is different than what she thought of artists schedules would be like. Hard to have a balance with friends and family, because always working like us!
- Do you feel you have a work life balance?
- Work life harmony. There isn’t a good work life balance, but it is all worked into one. It can be hard for other people to understand, but this is what she does. It is her hobby and passion. Her finance works in the same office, but he works on his own business, so working together physically, but on different businesses. She has always been intense and focused, same as us! She couldn’t have gotten where she is in such a short amount of time without spending so much time on it. What she accomplished in 5 or 6 years, should’ve been accomplished in 20 years.
- Do you shop online or in-store?
- All online! Get all art supplies online, etc.
- What’s happening in April?
- The art show! She is drawing squish paintings – Rorschach ink blot test psychologists used to give in insane asylums where people see different things. Have combined these two, so it is a much more psychological component. There is also an interactive component. She is 4-6 months ahead of what is happening on Instagram because people don't want to see things too far out.
- How do you counterbalance the intensity it takes to create one of your pieces?
- She finds drawing really meditative.
- What is your process when you work?
- Listen to podcasts to learn, think it is distracting by listening to music. The days go so quickly and she learns a lot because consumes so much information in one day. Drawing happens on auto-pilot so used to it now.
- How do you feel about the hoopla that surrounds your art exhibitions?
- This wasn’t planned, it just happened. Able to create bigger and bigger shows. She did the drawings, created the idea and thought a couple of people would come in and out. Tens of thousands of people showed up with four hour lines! It turned into a crowd that maybe wasn’t necessarily there for the art. Difficult to be an artist on Instagram. You want to stay true to your work and do your work when you want to do your work, don’t want to have to update so frequently. She would rather not show what she is doing, but there is power in social media. Want to make sure it is enjoyable for her. YouTube and podcasts are great because it is hard to tell the full story on Instagram because that isn’t what they are there for. Instagram is 99% Instagram community and 1% art community, so she is appealing to Instagrammers, not the art community. For TSTBU, we aren’t necessarily posting for the fashion or art community, because they may already know. We are posting for people who may not have heard of the brand, and want it to feel less intimidated and they will want to learn more. Open people up to be excited about art, have an opinion, etc. It is interesting to look back and see your career in images on Instagram and sometimes looking back it is cringe worthy! Male artists don’t think about it too much, whereas females think about everything. Females spend time thinking about how their actions will make people feel.
