Alicia Henry creates work that departs from Western ideas of portraiture, which denote a likeness or a construction of a subject. Instead, Henry’s figurative sculptures foreground the human figure in isolation, exploring metaphorical and formal connections between visibility and identity. Henry’s depictions of unidentifiable individuals are based on a range of composite references including but not limited by her own memories, African masks, paper-dolls, European clowning traditions, American minstrelsy and everyday life and events. Henry employs various techniques to make her representations including painting, collage, needlework, and leather tanning.