Nelson Henricks Don’t You Like the Green of A?

Don’t You Like the Green of A? by Montreal-based artist Nelson Henricks is a surrealist interpretation of the iteration of synaesthesia shared by Henricks and artist Joan Mitchell, in which certain stimuli provoke specific cross-sensory perceptions. Featuring a multimedia installation integrating video, paintings, photographs, and sculptural elements, this exhibition extends Henricks’ research into Mitchell’s unique perceptions in ways that challenge conventional boundaries between art, design, and craft.

The following passage is excerpted from the original exhibition text for Henricks’ Don’t You Like the Green of A? curated by Mark Lanctôt, which premiered at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, November 2022 – April 2023. The title of the project is quoted from a conversation between Mitchell and art critic Yves Michaud in 1986, in which the artist discusses her synaesthesia.

“Don’t You Like the Green of A? is based on the correspondences between letters [of the alphabet] and colours specific to (painter) Joan Mitchell’s synaesthesia—a condition that Henricks happens to share with her. Synaesthesia is a neurological syndrome in which perception by one sense automatically triggers a perception in one of the other senses. This connectivity between senses may be manifested in different ways. For example, in grapheme-colour synaesthesia, numbers or letters are associated with colours; in music-colour synaesthesia, people perceive colour by hearing a sound or music. This new project returns to a structure that Henricks previously adopted in at least two works: Monochrome A to Z (Synaesthesia Paintings) (2012–14) and Monochrome A to Z (for Grapheme-Colour Synaesthetes) (2012). In the former work, a series of twenty-six monochrome paintings of an identical small size show the colours that Henricks associates with each letter of the alphabet. In the latter work, each of the twenty-six drawings presents a single letter repeated until the surface is entirely covered. Don’t You Like the Green of A? is made, instead, from Joan Mitchell’s associations between letters of the alphabet and certain colours and is presented as a more elaborate combination of these associations. The installation also features monochrome paintings, but they are accompanied by wallpaper, as well as a business suit and smock that reflect Mitchell’s chromatic alphabet. Specifically, the coloured checkerboards that cover these elements reproduce the sequence of letters in the alphabet (on the wallpaper and the smock) or spell out the title of the installation, Don’t You Like the Green of A? (on the business suit and the wallpaper).”

— Mark Lanctôt

For the exhibition at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Henricks reprises this body of work. A single-channel video acts as the keystone of the installation, and features two versions of Henricks: one wearing the business suit, and the other wearing the smock. The relationship between the two characters is humorous and open-ended. Every now and then, the artist holds out a microphone to capture the sounds that the colours used in Mitchell’s paintings might make. While here they are associated with colours, for some people with synaesthesia, letters trigger a sound or tone. Throughout his project, Henricks follows an approach he established in 2012, addressing synaesthesia not only as a subject but also as a methodology.

Presented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art