NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Kasmin Gallery presents the exhibition A Venomous Bloom by Kent Henricksen. Opening on May 6, 2010 at 511 W. 27th Street, this will be the artist’s first show with the gallery. In Henricksen’s canvases, gods and thieves, ladies and marauders, angels and tricksters are brought together and transformed through the use of silkscreen, embroidery, and gold leaf. Characters drawn from such diverse sources as Albrecht Dürer woodcuts, historical newspaper illustrations, José Guadalupe Posada engravings, and Max Ernst collages are recast into new roles, telling new tales. These narratives often upend historical power dynamics, using Henricksen’s layered imagery to visually question the traditional roles of the oppressor and the oppressed across cultures. As in Tibetan Thangka paintings, interwoven scenes orbit central figures,