Judy Henricks: Mongo and Melancholy

Judy Henricks is a local artist and professor of drawing and painting at Elon University. Judy did her undergrad at Illinois Chicago Circle Campus as both an American and English Literature major, graduating in 1971. She later graduated University of North Carolina at Greensboro for her MFA in 1981 as a weaver, and has been teaching at Elon University since. While Judy works mostly in drawings, paintings and collage, the primary aura of her work is of a melancholy nature. She works with the discarded objects of the past, the objects that have been forgotten and treated poorly. This idea was inspired by Mongo, a 1980’s NYC fab, using someone’s discarded items for the finders benefit. Judy brings these objects to a new importance, making them the subjects of her works, but at the same time critiques our materialistic and careless society through her melancholy undertones.