Frantz Patrick Henry and I met in the Spring of 2019. I co-curated the exhibition "Over My Black Body" at Galerie de l’UQAM with my friend Anaïs Castro. Stanley Février, one of the artists in the show, had a team of assistants supporting him, of which Patrick Henry was a part. I had to engage in numerous back-and-forth discussions at the gallery regarding exhibition design, setup, lighting, and the artists’ well-being. His attention to detail and calm demeanour were more than welcome as the opening date was approaching. I followed his career since, noticing every time that there was something distinctly Haitian about his work: his use of found objects, the blending of many life forms, his use of metal and stone, and the painterly composition of his installations reminded me of the artists I have studied and have encountered in my relatives’ homes. Still, Frantz’s practice strikes me as one that is rooted in thoughts and gestures that stem from meticulous research on a vast set of interests and affects that always situate his work in a Global context. 

Frantz Patrick Henry was born in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti and arrived in Montreal in 2011, a year after the earthquake. He had an artistic practice in Haiti, which flourished when he came to Montreal to do his undergraduate studies in Studio Art at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He now holds an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. He has consistently exhibited his work around the world since 2019 and has recently had a solo exhibition at the Darling Foundry in Montreal. 

Over 5 years after our first encounter, we finally sat together for a longer conversation. We met over Zoom for this interview, but we were fortunate to meet in person a few weeks prior, at the opening of his solo exhibition, 'No Bystanders,’ at the Darling Foundry. We talked about art, obviously, but also about mentorship and collaboration. We discussed his dream of creating a residency/exchange program between Canada, the US, and Haiti; we laughed about how every Haitian is an artist, whether we claim it or not. We also discussed architecture and minimalism, and how, through a maximalist home, we can understand people’s sensibilities.

 

 

 

I also look on the side of literature: how does it convey images? I work a lot with metonymies and synecdoches. It's not necessary to always be in excessive representation, but I can offer previews, signifiers (to show presence from absence, to remove the cause to highlight the effect, etc).

 

 

 

I got to know your sculptural work through a conversation you were having with Stanley Février. Can you tell me about the genesis of this dialogue and work?

I met Stanley at UQAM when I was doing my BFA. I was learning how to do moulding, and he hired me to help him. Back then I was thinking of doing a project to commemorate the earthquake in Haiti. We were always in conversation, discussing topics such as Haiti and being a Black artist in Montreal, among others. It made me want to work with or have a conversation with an artist who shares my roots and concerns, or someone in a similar existential position. Then he had to travel so he left me his studio in the meantime. I suggested to him that since I was going to be there anyway working on some projects, I could do some tests with his moulds and that he could tell me what he thought when he came back. He accepted; I brought with me items that were under the rubble, especially debris, which I started to insert into the moulds. The plaster was now showing scars from the earthquake. Upon his return, he let me show this sculptural research (Je suis nouveau ici, 2019) in one of my classes and I also presented it as part of the exhibition Paramètres XIX (Place des Arts, Montreal, January 24 – February 1st, 2020). In the class where I had presented it, Roxanne Arsenault (former Patel Brown Gallery director in Montreal) who was at Clark at the time was a guest for the critique. She waited until the very end to talk to me, which made me nervous. She said she loved the project and invited me to Clark to discuss. I would say that that’s when my career as a professional artist started: I had one exhibition there and was part of the delegation for the Dakar Biennale. Roxanne and Stanley are precious people to me: as a student, you don’t always have opportunities to show and develop; they allowed me to transition from the speculative side of my capacities to the practical side, and to have more confidence in myself.

I spent more time with "je suis nouveau ici" in 2021 because at the time, I was working on an exhibition on domestic spaces, inhabited spaces, etc. Your use of brick and column caught my attention. However, it’s a body of work about immigration, can you elaborate?

You're making me realize that my work really has a narrative framework! In my work, the narrative is very important: it's an accumulation of my previous reflections and experimentations. Now, with social media and instantaneous access to a wide range of visual languages, it tends to contaminate and pollute practices. It sounds negative, but I see it as being positive.  On the contrary, however, it is still through the repetition of our own sensibility that we develop our own visual narrative. With Je suis nouveau ici, I wanted to remain coherent with my personality but also my experience of immigration. At the time, I was taking a class called The Psychology of Immigration and it was so, so important because it allowed me to situate myself in the social economy of Quebec, to put myself at a distance, and look at myself from “the outside.” I got to understand things in relation to different attitudes of the immigrant and the host country: if the latter becomes xenophobic, the immigrant person will tend to rebel. As another example, if an immigrant person comes from a wealthy background, they will likely engage in a meritocratic discourse once in the host country and will further believe in the myth of exceptionalism. That class allowed me to ask myself: where do I situate myself but also where do I see myself be? It made me realize where I situate myself as an artist in Quebec as well as my blind spots. This is how I started to work from the accumulation of objects, materials, images. I also look on the side of literature: how does it convey images? I work a lot with metonymies and synecdoches. It's not necessary to always be in excessive representation, but I can offer previews, signifiers (to show presence from absence, to remove the cause to highlight the effect, etc).

Something I now notice in my work is how I “solidify matter.” My work started with integrating fragments, now the object (in its complete form and not in pieces) is more and more present. There is still the impression of assemblage since the materials I use are often heterogeneous but there is this shift in the final sculpture.

You went to Yale to do your masters afterwards, why?

I was graduating at the time when Stanley's career in Quebec was really starting to take off and I found that there was a general awkwardness regarding the place of other Black artists in Montreal. The work is misunderstood, often discussed in reductive terms. I didn't want my work to be presented in that light. I wanted to discuss how artworks are part of a larger cultural production, and how objects define the time and conditions of creation that we face. I wanted to discuss what art makes us feel, rather than just focusing on the nationality of the creator. I talked about it with two teachers that are dear to me: Anne-Marie Ninacs and Stephen Schofield (with whom I was working with at the same time as Stanley). I asked them for a letter of reference and the two of them said (without consulting each other): “I see your ambition and if that's really what you want, go elsewhere.” On one side, there was the possibility of more easily integrating the Quebec art world by pursuing my studies here (the grants, the professionalization of the practice, etc), but on the other side, it could also make me complacent. I took some time to reflect (3 years!) and I started applying to Concordia and UBC. I have to credit Caroline Douville for triggering the idea of studying abroad. During a studio visit with her where I was discussing those issues, she asked me why not leave Canada. I was hesitating, procrastinating towards a frank answer and she asked me: what are you afraid of? I thought about it a lot when I got home that night and when I arrived, I did some research. Schofield told me about Goldsmiths because he had encouraged Manuel Mathieu to go there too, and he was able to put me in touch with key people in that program. I applied at Yale because the sculpture program is very popular. I didn't have expectations because the Canadian options seemed as interesting to me. To my surprise, Yale gave me an interview. I prepared a lot because at the time I didn't speak English! Goldsmiths also accepted my application but what determined my choice was the studios provided by each university. At Goldsmiths, I would have had to share, and when I saw Yale's, the choice became natural. Also, I saw that Yale students weren't afraid of experimenting, of taking up space. It was one of the best decisions I've made for my practice. I was able to experiment with materials that I never thought I would want to use: I work with metal, whereas before it was mainly plaster and wood. I do a lot of foundry work and I use new technologies that require me to work more behind my computer. My use of laser and water jets begins with digital design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me about your residency experience at NXTHVN and the (positive or not) impact of that time after your master's degree?

I applied to two residencies after graduating from the MFA: one in Italy for the summer and this one. I know everyone applied because it's a good stepping stone: they give you a studio, an apartment and a fee of 35K US. It's an excellent transition between studies and career: Titus Kaphar (artist and cofounder of the residency) and Jason Price (cofounder and investor) exposed us to professional artists and others in their network who can have a significant impact on our careers. We learned how to price our work, we meet collectors, we were encouraged to speak about our career ambitions, etc. We had discussions on issues in the international artistic community; we met big galleries like Hauser & Wirth, Gagosian, James Cohan. The previous cohort even had the chance to meet Oprah, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats! In that sense, it's an amazing opportunity to be exposed to all of that. Unfortunately, I feel like I didn't take full advantage of everything the residency had to offer because I had many exhibitions, was a bit all over the place, and missed seminars. I still had an exhibition with James Cohan because of that. Let's say that the residency is really a career accelerator. 

I often think about the impact that residencies have on the artistic journey, and I find them to be a special moment for delving into questions and developing artistic inquiries. I wonder if doing a residency right after a masters' is a bit early for that. But on the contrary, it's a great space for building a strong foundation on one's practice to eventually question it.

Yes, it's one of the reasons why I didn't get to take advantage of the residency fully: it was important for me to continue to show my work, to develop my independence. I really wanted to finish exploring what I started exploring during my MFA. I'm at a point now where I have a lot of things to explore, I have a huge baggage of inspiration but also technical baggage. My exhibition at Bradley Ertaskiran (Fall and Spin, July 17 – August 30, 2025) had works that I was working on when preparing for the exhibition at Darling Foundry. It was planned as such: these works came out of experimentations, failures, technical explorations that allowed me to learn new techniques. 

For example, I look at a lot of press images that I want to integrate into my work but I didn't know how to get away from the “press” point of view on these images. With the different experiments I have done, I manage to integrate them into my work in a way that is consistent with my practice. They are barely recognizable but remain charged. I want the images to say something different than when we first saw them, because they have already existed, they already have their own story. If I reuse them, if I make use of them, what do I want them to express?

I was able to see your work in the exhibition Undoing Earthwriting, by Ella den Elzen at Optica. You were in conversation with her and the other artists in the exhibition. Can you tell us about the body of work you presented and how the dialogue influenced your work?

At that time, hybridization was already making its way into my work, but in the discussions we had, we talked a lot about the diversity found in the African diaspora. Some artists were very attached to the idea of ​​Americanized Blackness, as if there was no other way to approach this concept outside of the American experience. Even when we were talking about the title, we had debates about which one to choose. Ella still had a sensitivity towards flora, fauna, and extraction, and I asked myself: what can symbolize all of that but will allow me to keep my own sensibilities? I want to keep the material, I want it to remain stylized, sensual. How can I keep all of that, without being decorative? The banana flower already existed in my artistic lexicon. I took it and started hybridizing it with pear balloons. Not necessarily to refer to boxing, but rather for its bouncy side: you push it away, it comes back to you, it forces you to keep a rhythm. How to represent the degradation of its effects? Putting it like the “fruit” of the banana flower seemed to make sense to me, because it can produce fruit (the banana) or wither. I molded it in several stages of “flowering” so that we can see the rhythm of its degradation. Our group discussions led me to this creation. We also talked about the fact that identity is important to us, but (re)presenting the personal was just as important. What I liked about these discussions is that they allowed me to put forward the aspect of my work where I want it to say everything I have to say, that the identity of my work reflects my sensibilities, without having to talk about it. I can talk about something else, talk about the superfluous.

You have been in situations of dialogue and collaboration (Stanley, Roxanne, Yale, Ella, etc) can you talk about how this affects your artistic reflections? Do the relationships you enter into have an impact on how you do your work?

Oh yes, absolutely! It's a way of keeping things alive because I often talk to other artists who share little, who keep their work as sacred. Which I can understand, but at the same time, bringing the breath of others into what we look at and what we do is just as important. It's in these dialogues that we find something that is alive without forcing the point. During my residency at NXTHVN, I received a visit from Puerto Rican artist Pablo Delano, who was at the last Venice Biennale. Our discussion (where I spoke to him about the dialogues I wish to have with Haiti) led him to invite me to do an exhibition at the school where he teaches (Trinity College in Hartford, CT), because it holds a collection of Haitian art that contains more than 300 objects. He invited me to visit the collection to select a few works to put them in dialogue with my practice in the context of an exhibition. I chose works whose motifs, but also subject matter, could be used for my practice. The exhibition (Echoes and Collisions: The Art of Frantz Patrick Henry in Conversation with Selections from the Edith A. Graham Collection of Haitian Art) was a success; several articles were written about it. One thing I took away from my time in the collection was all the metalwork. I grew up in Croix-des-Bouquets and lived near a metal workshop where they cut barrels to make works with spiritual or water motifs. I put a piece from the collection that I really liked, Zodiac by Serge Jolimeau, in conversation with Aller Simple (2024). This connection took me back to my childhood memories, when I would hear the sound of metal being hammered on my way home from school. What might these works have looked like if the artists had access to the same technologies as I, the water jet, the laser, etc? I do this work to be part of a tradition, but also to perpetuate it in contemporary art.

 

 

How can I bring the elsewhere without it being obvious? I want to do it through images, textures, bringing objects of diverse origins, that come from elsewhere, that speak for themselves, by their presence, by their “alien” aspect in the space.

 

 

 

Let's talk about the No-Bystanders exhibition at the Darling Foundry. There are several different forms and practices. When we met at the opening, you explained to me that the body of work presented was a selection of a large number of works that you brought with you to Montreal. What led you to make your choices?

I met Milly-Alexandra Déry(Director of Darling Foundry) after presenting a piece at Art Souterrain (Rogner les murs, 2021). We did a studio visit where I told her I was going to leave Montreal to do my master's, and she said: “no problem, let's continue the conversation.” I remember showing her one of the sculptures I was working on at Yale. I had made teenagers in unstable postures (As if It Was the First Time, 2023), which she really liked and that's when she suggested an exhibition. At first, we were going to present six of these teenagers suspended in the main room. However, I learned so much in a short period of time (for example, my figurative work is completely on hold) and when it came to putting the exhibition together, it had been a long time since I had made these sculptures. In the meantime, I did a residency in Tuscany, Italy, with an interior designer (the connection was made because her father was studying architecture at Yale). During the residency, I was able to do a lot of research on architecture. Italian stone and wood buildings reminded me a lot of where I grew up, even my childhood home. I thought: this is crazy! But at the same time, not so much, because Europe colonized us. I was also drawn to limewash, which is also used a lot in Haiti. That's when I suggested to Renaud (Gaboury, curator of the Darling Foundry) that we bring interior spaces into the exhibition. I really wanted to do something related to walking, to wander between public and private architecture, to see the inside from the outside (and in this case, the other way around). When he suggested the large room, I really wanted the public to walk and wander between several stations.

At the same time as all this, I was working on the exhibition at James Cohan (The Things Left Unsaid, May 8 - June 21, 2025) so I created a lot of objects. It's hard to work on something when you're physically somewhere else, so I made a lot of objects that I was going to bring with me to Montreal and make a more informed and relevant selection on site. I had never seen the large room at the Fonderie empty and I asked myself: what am I going to do with all this? Being on site with more works than necessary was very useful in this case. I kept the idea of walking, creating stations and stopping points, but also perspectives. At each station you have a different and interesting point of view on the objects. I was less interested in the volume of the objects, but rather in how, visually, the objects would occupy the space. Even the house (Confessions, 2025), I would like to take it even further: first, it was supposed to be all glass but I didn't have the capacity, and also, I wanted the fountain to be on its roof. I also noticed that the etching on the glass disappears when the water goes over it: I would have liked to put the fountain on a timer so that the etching would be “revealed” at times. This is something I'm keeping in mind for next time. I even wanted there to be a fog machine, which would mask and reveal the works but it wasn't possible to do it in the space.

The exhibition presents my personal journey, reflecting my life in a religious family, as seen through the light and stained glass (L’élément Ignieux, 2024). It's also a tribute: I had a travel grant from Yale and I went to Haiti. I was driving and next to me I saw a man on a motorcycle who was driving with one hand, and the other hand was holding an IV bag. When I saw him, I didn't feel sorry for his condition; I rather saw something dystopian, sci-fi. That's what made me create Resurrection Highway (2024). How can I bring the elsewhere without it being obvious? I want to do it through images, textures, bringing objects of diverse origins, that come from elsewhere, that speak for themselves, by their presence, by their “alien” aspect in the space. When I look at the visual style of my works, I tell myself that someone won't be able to say that it's 100% Québécois pure laine, there are other things, other places. I want to keep it abstract, for it to not talk about a specific location.

Can you talk about the impact of places on the form your work takes?

The works are always circumstantial. I look at the challenges I face. When I was in school, the focus was on self-sufficiency. We're connected to the school, resources are available, you can afford more, and risk-taking is encouraged. However, once you leave, everything depends on you, you have to provide for your needs, your resources. The size and price of your works take priority over creation. When you meet collectors, you see that they don't want to burden themselves with large objects with overly complicated content, so you realize the more conservative side of this world. Since these are things that reality forces you to think about, I wonder when and where a work can truly live? It remains a challenge, because even when I try to create smaller works, they become something quite enormous, despite my intentions. In a place like Bradley Ertaskiran, as I was part of a group exhibition, with paintings in particular, I created works that go on the wall, because they are in a private gallery and therefore easier to sell. I try to adapt to this kind of hanging, without it having a negative impact on how I normally do my work; I integrate the hanging systems into the sculpture itself, it is a little detached from the wall, it ensures that it remains sculptural despite being on the wall. It also allows me to see the interest that my work generates [for a private gallery].

I'm curious to hear about your painting practice! I hear from your answers that you have one, but I'm mostly familiar with your sculptures. Do you see it as separate from your sculpture work? Is it present in your work even though we can't see it, like photography, for example?

I had put my painting practice aside: I was learning and hearing a lot about the idea of ​​the death of painting. I wondered how I could maintain it, without falling into excessive representation? Art [painting] history has explored many ways of bringing other ideas without only using the strategy of representation. My ambition has always been to integrate painting into my practice: installation was my way of doing this. But, I still had trouble finding the right moment to put painting more forward. Now is an interesting moment: my sculpture practice still has a bit of 2D in it, so I can play with this two-dimensionality of the surface. Working on my computer really allows me to play with this: I can work from collages in Photoshop, which I consider a flat surface. The engraving on the glass, the cut-out pieces are also flat surfaces, like the canvas. It allows me to work between image, shadow, silhouette, volume, these elements that are questioned in painting. How do my installations allow shadow to be a characteristic in its own right rather than simply a projection of images? Painting and the way I think about my installations are in communication. I'm really excited to see where I'm going to take all this: just when I think about colors! I use raw materials, I don't like to do too much finishing on the surface, whether it's metal or wood, I don't like to alter them too much. The color would allow—a bit like a bouquet—a denser, more fragrant moment. My works create atmospheres and the color would allow different textures, different patterns to be stimulated.

What's next for you? I don't always like asking this question because I believe in resting between such prolific moments but since you're always exploring, questioning and creating, what's coming up next?

I potentially have a project in Toronto to confirm, but yes, I would like to take a break. I feel the physical impact of all this work, especially in sculpture and welding, and I would like to take time off to lead a human life. It's nice to be in demand, but at the same time, the burnout is real. I would like to take the time to look back at everything I've accomplished. I deserve it, and I'm really feeling the fatigue: this year alone, I've had 5 exhibitions, including 2 solo ones, and all with new pieces. The materials I use are quite hard on the body. If I could take the summer off to recover, that would be great, but you know, sometimes things come up, things you can't refuse. The Bradley Ertaskiran exhibition wasn't in my schedule, but since we had started talking before I left (for New Haven) and they had offered me several projects in the meantime, I thought it was the right time.

I wish you this moment of desired rest, and I also wish you to accept that you have done enough to deserve it.

Yes, I'm working on it. There are other people who are twisting my arm for me to rest, it's a good incentive.