Angela Hennessy is an Oakland based artist and survivor of gun violence. Tending to themes of loss and liberation, her work draws upon mourning practices that activate hair as a material exchanged between the living and the dead. She is an associate professor at California College of the Arts where teaches courses on visual and cultural narratives of death in contemporary art.
Hennessy’s work has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, Wovenutopia, and The New Yorker, and in exhibitions at the Museum of the African Diaspora, Oakland Museum of California, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, and Pt. 2 Gallery. She has received awards from the Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco Artadia, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Her work is in the collection of the de Young Museum and the Crocker Art Museum.
The Fiber and Material Studies department’s annual Mitchell Lectureship Series features outstanding artists and scholars in the field of fiber. These lectures are made possible by the generous support of the William Bronson and Grayce Slovett Mitchell Lectureship in Fiber and Material Studies. Persons with disabilities requesting accommodations should visit saic.edu/access.
This event is free and open to the public.
Top left image: Angela Hennessy, The Crew (#9), 2022, Synthetic hair, 37'' H x 23'' W, photo courtesty of pt.2 Gallery; Lower right image: Angela Hennessy, night Flowers, 2023, Synthetic Hair, 38'' H x 30'' W, photo courtesy pt.2 Gallery
