"Commons" is the latest iteration of a multi-year project focused on impromptu portraits of people in public by Philadelphia artist Mary Henderson. Each painting is set in West Philadelphia’s iconic Clark Park, a few steps away from her house. The paintings are scaled to the size of a hand, connecting them to historical miniature painting and its precious tokens of love and memorial. Inspired in part by the Parisian park and garden-party paintings of French Impressionist painting, the work imagines this public square, with its radical possibilities for community and collective effervescence, as a kind of everyday utopia. "Commons" will be on view at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia from Sept. 21-October 22, 2023.
