Bio

Artist’s Bio – Daniel Hendricksen May 2026

When writing a college essay in 1978, about placing the genre of landscape art into historical context, Daniel Hendricksen stated that, in a not-too-distant future, landscape art would regain the primary importance it once had in the dark caves of prehistory. Indeed, all disciplines would necessarily give full attention to the overwhelming issue of species survival – given the immanent climate collapse happening across this endangered planet. Now, whether you think this is premonition, prediction, or hyperbole, this theme has been a unifying thread running through Hendricksen’s lifetime of artwork creation.

From camping with his father’s Boy Scout Troop in the Ozark mountains near his boyhood home of Fort Smith AR to a blissful Indiana morning in Summer Camp for Teen’s at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, where for the first time he would quietly draw outdoors on the Museum grounds with careful observation, the idea that beauty in the natural environment was ours to behold as well as our responsibility to protect, was "lived truth" to that young artist.

Daniel always wanted to find space to be in creative pursuit. Even going so far as enduring an early morning tutored Algebra class while in 8th grade (at the time, a year early on the regular curriculum) so that once in High School, Art as an elective course could be added into Daniel’s freshman year. Later, in college, his plan to major in education in order to become an art teacher proved to be a non-starter, so he transferred to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), one of the nation’s cutting-edge schools for serious study. In the 1970’s, the idea of the artist’s “alternative space” for exhibiting work felt like a radical departure from the traditional path of connecting with a commercial gallery for representation. Following the lead of MCAD instructor and neon artist, Cork Marcheschi, the class took over the lower level of the not-quite finished renovation of the Butler Square Building in downtown Minneapolis and produced an exceptional pop-up show. Daniel’s contribution was a multi-media construction involving automated 35mm slide projection, audio tape loop, and a four-sided, four-feet high canvas pyramid “screen” with a reflector suspended above. Titled, “164 Audio / Visual Sketches” the piece asserted the physicality of tiny transparency slides as they were projected up from inside the pyramid to be reflected and land back onto the pyramid below. The viewer would move around the sculpture to view only a part of each projected image at any one point. Each photographic slide was accompanied by Hendricksen’s improvised music on alternating instruments: guitar, flute, piano, and pipe organ. Following that success, but wanting to try different course options at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Daniel decided to take a year away from MCAD, to which Marcheschi stated, “If you go to Chicago, you’ll never come back!”

It’s 1977 in Chicago, and Daniel was immersed at SAIC in studies of Ceramics, Electronic Sound Synthesis, Photography, as well as Painting and Aesthetics. One Sunday, he also was recruited to sing in the First Saint Paul's (Lutheran) church choir by Amy, who would later become his wife. It turns out that Marcheschi’s prediction was spot-on. Daniel studied with painting instructor Ray Yoshida, a master of asking questions to draw out the individual’s own inner vision and crystalize its form into a painting of substance. Yoshida’s probing style of instruction would be pivotal in the development of Hendricksen’s abstractions: alternating layers of gestural painted playfulness with controlled geometric pattern developed as his painting style. Graduating with a new BFA degree from SAIC in 1980, however, was also without preparation for survival in the real world. Daniel’s part-time work in a downtown Chicago Loop camera store, of necessity, became full-time and soon management responsibility was added. A daughter, Anna, was born to Amy and Daniel, a blessing and a joy. The economy of family and business life overshadowed Daniel’s daily production of artwork, but that flame never went out. He always had studio space and an occasional place to show work.

Hendricksen’s paintings in the 1980’s were large, acrylic on canvas, layered and abstracted landscapes – perhaps unrecognizable to some viewers as such – but he used the color, shapes and layering of imagined land forms in these pieces. Later, Daniel developed a method of using chipboard panels that are ripped in accidental places along with carefully delineated scroll saw cuts to make a kind of hybrid organic-and-geometric shape. The painted surface of the panel is both compliment and contrast to its shape. The artistic tension between the physical material and the illusion of space in this painted form is one of the hallmarks of Hendricksen’s art. Daniel remained an observer of the Chicago art scene and also continued to produce landscape paintings on-site, but with daily work in the camera store and volunteer leadership positions at his church increasingly filling what were painting hours, it was nature photography with it’s quicker capture capability that became a major creative outlet for the decades of 1990’s and 2000’s.

Upon joining Positive Space Studio in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, Daniel gained more energy and regular time for painting and exhibiting. This was a major step in his artistic practice and confidence. Then, the fortuitous timing of his retirement in February 2020 from the retail camera business occurred only several weeks before COVID would shut down all non-essential business and community activity in the country. A move from Chicago to Saint Paul MN had been planned many months before retirement with the idea of energetically joining the Twin Cities art community. Though the difficult move was made in Spring 2020 (and see, Daniel did return to Minnesota!) COVID made those plans for art networking activities moot. That Summer, plein-air painting was perhaps re-discovered by many artists who were isolated in the pandemic. Daniel joined a group that met weekly for painting sessions in the park. Later, he found an online call for art and his shaped panel painting, “Excavation”, was accepted in the Northern Lights exhibit at White Bear Center for the Arts (WBCA), which was a virtual show in 2021. WBCA also offered a virtual art discussion group on Zoom called “Studio Coffee.” This was an intellectual lifesaver for Daniel, in those isolated times. Later that year, WBCA’s Into Nature plein-air painting competition was offered. Things were opening up!

Other group membership and exhibit opportunities helped Daniel to make connections. Joining the Minnesota Artists Association, showing regularly in exhibits at AZ Gallery (now Burl Gallery) in Lowertown Saint Paul, submitting work to the member shows at WBCA and Banfill-Locke House in Fridley have been important outlets. The Twin Cities metro area has many churches with art gallery spaces within their facilities where Daniel has had opportunities to exhibit his work in group and solo shows. He had work accepted into the 2024 Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts exhibition, participated in the Saint Paul Art Collective’s seasonal Art Crawls, both at Schmidt Brewhouse and Virginia St. Church. All of these activities and venues keep Daniel active and provides the needed outlet for his artistic production.

Looking ahead, Daniel is excited to prepare for an upcoming major solo exhibition at the Phipps Center for the Arts, Gallery 2, in Hudson WI, during February to April of 2027.