Artist draws inspiration from son born with Down syndrome

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on November 12, 2024.

Herald photo by Justin Seward Artist Kyley Henderson officially launched her Isolated Series exhibit over the weekend at the Helen Schuler Nature Centre.

Artist Kyley Henderson drew inspiration in doing water colouring art from her son’s birth and now her first exhibit is on display at the Helen Schuler Nature Centre.

“I started painting more seriously in 2019 when I had my son,” said Henderson.

“He was born with Down syndrome and he also has autism … I realized that my son was going to need care for the rest of his life and I wanted to have a bit of a career myself and I’ve always loved doing art and painting. And so, I started taking it a lot more seriously since then and I worked on commissions and pet portraits mostly for the first couple years.”

Her Isolation Series which came to fruition in the last year-and-a-half, consists of 27 water colour paintings that depict wolves in colours of vibrancy and high contrasting officially launched on Saturday.

“It’s called the Isolation Series because when you have a child with disabilities, you find out who your friends really are and you find out just how sort of isolated you are in the world from just your different experiences,” said Henderson.

“That’s what the whole series was kind of based on was sort of the cliché lone wolf and being able to navigate and grow from your experiences and situations that you don’t have control over.”

Through the 27 paintings there are different stories from losing a loved one to navigating disabilities or family issues.

Henderson started out with a small personal series for herself when she had her son and that included creating the first painting called Earth Bound.

“That painting kind of reflected on the traumatic experience we had in the hospital and how my partner was kind of my rock through it all,” said Henderson.

“So to start my own series of my own work with my own thought processes and concepts, I thought I’ll just kick-start off the first painting that I had done when I had my son and just do a whole series based on the wolves because of that.”

Henderson plans on getting to 50 paintings before moving onto a different subject.

“I’m hoping to work on crows and ravens next,” said Henderson.

She has also been working on first responders series water colour paintings.

“A first responder will send in a picture and I’ll just paint them,” she said.

Isolation Series is on display until Dec. 14 at Helen Schuler Nature Centre.