Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Janet Olivia Henry

Janet Olivia Henry

At least two dozen clear plastic pouches hold doll body parts or accessories or materials like shredded gold foil or iridescent strands. Together the hanging pouches create a long sculptural piece that tapers to a point, made of a tube packed with glittery strands, at the bottom.

Ritual (Self-Portrait)

2025

View down into a doll-scaled structure of seven rooms and two open spaces, which together make a grid of three-by-three cubes. One room holds a urinal laid down on a table and other materials, and another is set up as an office. At least 19 dolls line an L-shaped space created by three cubes. The dolls have different colors of hair and skin, and each is elaborately dressed.

Wrought: WAC's Drum Corps

2007 - 2024

Two dove-gray panels are set up to make a back wall and floor of a diorama scattered with doll-sized items of clothing, shoes, and accessories. Two dolls stand to either side near the back wall, bookending a hung display of miniature materials and sculptural pieces. One doll has light-toned skin and blond hair, and wears a skirt made up of gold purses. The others face is hidden by a tangled cloud of brown hair.

The Male Art Dependent

1984 - 2025

A waterfall-like form of black, brown, and dark red beads makes up about the left half of this long, dangling, sculptural work. White beads and narrow, white, tube-like packets, which are stitched around their edges in white or red, make up the right half. The tubes reach out from the beaded strand like fish bones from a spine.

BIFURCATE

1983 - 2023

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Janet Olivia Henry

Janet smiles and stands against a white wall, holding her arms crossed so she grips her forearms with opposite hands. She is Black with black narrow braids falling behind her shoulders from under a white cap. She wears a white shirt and amethyst-purple jacket, and a sculptural piece made up of colorful beads and white tubes hangs to the left.
Photo by Christopher Garcia Valle

Janet Olivia Henry (b. 1947, East Harlem, New York) is an artist who lives and works in Jamaica, Queens. She studied at the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology and received a fellowship in museum education from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since the late 1970s, she has developed a singular practice that utilizes dolls, miniatures, beads, textiles, photography, and text. Henry utilizes quilting and beading as tools to construct narrative tableaux and sculptures that use storytelling to produce incisive social commentary on gender, race, and class in American society.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ My practice uses narrative and play as liberatory strategies to capture difficult truths, fantasies, and anxieties that sit between art and everyday life. Over decades, I’ve developed fictional characters and narrative worlds using miniature dioramas, photography, craft techniques, and my own prose.”