Alex Brewer, also known as HENSE, is an American contemporary artist, best known for his dynamic, vivid and colorful abstract paintings and monumental wall pieces.Alex Brewer - HENSE “Internationally recognized contemporary public artist and award-winning painter Alex Brewer, known as HENSE, has been creating colorful works of art combining techniques of street art and abstract painting for nearly two decades."HENSE | WideWalls "Alex Brewer aka HENSE is an American contemporary artist, best known for his dynamic, vivid and colorful abstract paintings and monumental wall pieces." He has been active since the 1990s. In 2002 he began accepting commissions for artwork and over the course of the last decade has established a solid reputation as a commissioned artist, having appeared in several solo and group shows.
Although part of the legitimate art world for a decade, he is not apologetic about his years spent as a graffiti artist, as he feels this informs his current work.
Early life Brewer was born and raised in Atlanta. He began doing graffiti at the age of 13 under the name HENSE and was so prolific at it that he earned what graffiti artists call “all-city status” by having left tags in practically every neighborhood in the city.Debbie Michaud Stop Making HENSE Creative Loafing Atlanta, Sept 14 2012
Brewer graduated from Grady High School in Atlanta. He attended Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond for a semester, but dropped out to pursue his calling as a graffiti artist.
Career Grounding in Graffiti Brewer developed his skill for graffiti in the mid to late '90s and early 2000s. At this time the city had a handful of “legal walls”, such as the Civic Yard at Peachtree and Pine streets, where graffiti artists could display their work. However, in 2003 Atlanta passed an anti-graffiti ordinance that made it illegal to paint private murals on public property without approval from the city.
Artwork Brewer has produced a number of interior and exterior works around the world for both public institutions and private companies.
HENSE is most renowned for his abstract mural, “Building Blocks (aka “The Mural of Unusual Size,” May 2017), which spans the length of three old industrial buildings on West Baltimore Street in downtown Hagerstown, Maryland. His largest installation to date is The ISIL Institute in Lima, Peru amassing a size of 40 meters (137 feet) tall and 50 meters (170 feet) wide.HENSE - The largest mural in Lima by MORBO - Google Cultural InstituteHENSE's Biggest Mural Yet Completed in LimaHENSE: lima installation The PUBLIC 2015/Northam Silos, a site-specific mural installation on the CBH Group grain silos, curated by FORM and funded by FORM and the CBH Group in Northam, Western Australia measures 36 meters (118 feet) tall and 11 meters (36 feet) wide.International art project sprouts on side of grain silos in WA's Wheatbelt Mar 27, 2015 At Icon Midtown, Atlanta’s tallest new tower in a decade (as of 2018), the muralist HENSE has completed an untitled piece that measures 86 feet tall and 65 feet wide.
One of Brewer's stated highest honors was a commission by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to produce a site-specific installation as part of the museum's summer exhibition, Drawing Inside the Perimeter.Drawing Inside the Perimeter High Museum of Art Atlanta. Past Exhibitions. June 29 - September 22, 2013 He also created two original installations at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), for the Skate It or Hang It?! Exhibition, which illustrate the impact that skateboarding art has made on his work.CBS Atlanta June 23, 2012
In addition, he has commissioned work at Apple Inc, including a site-specific mural commissioned for new retail store barricade, along with artwork created for limited edition products, commissioned by Apple Inc, in Miami, Florida. He also has work at Facebook Inc, including a site-specific mural commissioned for Facebook Global Headquarters, in a building designed by Frank Gehry, commissioned by Facebook Inc, in Menlo Park, California. In addition to several works at companies including Aol, B2 Studios (Alton Brown's test kitchen and studio), Big Nerd Ranch, Hilton Hotels, King & Spalding, DLA Piper, Novartis, Tuner Broadcasting's Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and PRPL Digital Creative Agency.
Legal issues On April 1, 2011, Brewer and several other local Atlanta graffiti artists were sued for $1 million by a pair of Edgewood Avenue property owners.Wyatt Williams A Few Questions With Hense April 5, 2011 Brewer and several legitimate artists have countersued saying they had nothing to do with the work that they are being sued for.Street artists, taggers in graffiti lawsuit strike back with counterclaims Atlanta Journal Constitution. May 9, 2011 Another article describes the shift as ironic: "the same people the city had once paid officers to lock up were now receiving commissions from city coffers."The reinvention of HENSE - How the Atlanta graffiti artist went legit and became a global art star myAJC. Sep 20, 2015
Style Brewer’s free-form paintings and public mural installations use a combination of abstract lines, shapes and organic forms. His work has been described as fluid and playful and as an explosion of pastels.
Michael Rooks, the curator of modern and contemporary art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, said: "HENSE combines the quick pace and point-of-view of street culture with tumultuous compositions often characterized by highly keyed color, vertiginous line and biomorphic shapes."
"The artist thinks of his recent works on panel as a form of collage, in which, as he describes, he adds and subtracts different forms until the work feels finished. The results could be described as an elegantly choreographed cacophony, in which loosely geometric forms jostle one another and, in some of his paintings, rub up against kaleidoscopic patches of pigment. At their generous size, these works engulf viewers, sweeping us up in their visual rhythms—in which you just might detect the pulse of the street."Alex Brewer (aka HENSE) Channels the Rhythm of the Streets in New Graffiti-Inspired Paintings Artsy Editorial, Karen Kedmey, Nov 3, 2015
Solo exhibitions 2017 Color, Balance & Form, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD. 2016 CUT, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2015 Library Street Collective, HENSE, November, Detroit, MI. 2014 INTERIOR/EXTERIOR, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL. 2014 HENSE: Drawings, Paintings and Shapes, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA. 2013 HENSE: Prints and Paintings, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2013 HENSE: New Paintings, Maxwell Colette Gallery, Chicago, IL. 2012 SPRAY, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2009 Surface Strength, The Rail Yard, Atlanta, GA. 2008 Soft Light, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2005 12' x 6", Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, GA. 2005 New Works on Paper, Octane, Atlanta, GA.
Group exhibitions 2016 Abstraction Today, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA. 2015 Vivid Bunch, Die Kunstagentin, Cologne, Germany. 2014 Art Basel, Library Street Collective Gallery, Goldman Properties, Wynwood Arts District, Miami, FL. 2014 Abstract, BC Gallery, Berlin, Germany. 2014 The Shape of a Pocket, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2014 Intuitionists, The Drawing Center, New York, NY. 2013 Exhibit Z, Library Street Collective Gallery, Detroit, MI. 2013 Graffiti Mash Up, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2013 Drawing Inside the Perimeter, Site-specific installation, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. 2013 Graffuturism, Open Space Gallery, Paris, France. 2012 Skate it or Hang it, Museum of Design Atlanta MODA, Atlanta, GA. 2012 Off the Edge, Rialto Center For The Arts, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, Curated by Karen Comer Lowe. 2011 Art on the BeltLine, Exhibition of exterior public works along the BeltLine corridor, Atlanta, GA. 2011 Summer Group Show, Circa Gallery, Minneapolis, MN 2011 Hambidge Art Auction, Bradford Gallery, Atlanta, GA. Curated by Ben Goldman and Jenny Minkewicz. 2011 Mark Making In Black And White, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2010 Art on the BeltLine, Exhibition of exterior public works along the BeltLine corridor, Atlanta, GA. 2009 Freedom, Known Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2009 New Paintings, Lawrence Savage Gallery, Miami, FL. 2007 Experimental Prints on Paper, Beep Beep Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2007 Hambidge Art Auction, Puritan Mill, Atlanta, GA, Curated by Comer Art Advisory. 2007 Royal Elastics & The Seventh Letter Crew present “Letters First”, Curated by Known Gallery, Bread & Butter Tradeshow, Barcelona, Spain. 2007 New Paintings, Function, Decatur, GA. 2007 Drawing Outside The Lines, Rialto Center For The Arts, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, Curated by Comer Art Advisory. 2007 Drawings, Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2006 Lights Out, Scion Dashboard Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2006 Avidica, Compound, Atlanta, GA. 2005 Letters First Traveling Group Exhibition, RBK Concept Store - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, CA - Tokyo, Japan - Taipei, Taiwan. 2005 Writers vs. Riders, Upper Playground Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2005 Another Witty Remark, The Canvas Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2005 Environmentalists, Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, GA. 2004 Blurry, Retromodern, Atlanta, GA. 2003 Dome Piece, Objex Art Space, Miami, FL. 2003 A Collective Effort, The Forum, Atlanta, GA. 2003 Krylon and Beyond II, YoungBlood Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 2002 Mixed Media Installation, 55DSL, Diesel Store, Union Square, New York, NY. 2002 Krylon and Beyond, YoungBlood Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Commissions 2017 ICON Midtown, commissioned by the Related Group, Atlanta, GA. 2017 Building Blocks, Cultural Trail Mural, commissioned by the City of Hagerstown, Hagerstown, MD. 2016 Tuscawilla Park, Site-specific mural, commissioned by the Appleton Museum of Art and City of Ocala, Ocala, FL. 2016 PUBLIC 2016, Curtin University, commissioned and curated by FORM, Perth, Western Australia. 2015 Very Fun Park, Site-specific mural, commissioned by Fubon Art Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan. 2015 Glass Wheel Studios, Site-specific mural commissioned for the Neon District of Norfolk, Virginia 2015 PUBLIC 2015/Northam Silos, Site-specific mural installation on the CBH Group grain silos, curated by FORM, funded by FORM and CBH Group, Northam, Western Australia. 2015 Apple Inc, Site-specific mural commissioned for new retail store barricade, original artwork created for limited edition products, commissioned by Apple Inc, Miami, FL. 2015 Facebook Inc, Site-specific mural commissioned for Facebook Global Headquarters, building designed by Frank Gehry, Commissioned by Facebook Inc, Menlo Park, CA. 2014 Wiregrass Museum of Art, INTERIOR/EXTERIOR, site-specific installations, commissioned by the Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL. 2014 Madison Theater Building Mural, Detroit, Michigan. Commissioned by Bedrock Real Estate Services and curated by Library Street Collective Gallery. 2014 Commissioned public mural for Columbus State University and Uptown Columbus, Funded by the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley, Columbus, GA. 2013 Commissioned public murals for the Z Lot parking garage and retail space, Curated by Library Street Collective Gallery, Commissioned by Bedrock Real Estate Services, Detroit, MI. 2013 Public mural, commissioned by Property Adventures, Chicago, IL. 2013 Site-specific installation, RVA Fest, Commissioned by Venture Richmond, Richmond, Virginia. 2013 Three commissioned interior walls and one exterior work on wood for B2 Studios, Alton Brown’s new test kitchen and studio, Commissioned by BoxTree Designs and B2 Studios, Atlanta, Ga. 2013 Site-specific interior wall murals, Novartis Corporate Headquarters, Commissioned by Novartis Corporation, East Hanover, New Jersey.