Maret Hensick’s poignant and poetic mixed media on paper series was begun in July of 2019, four months after the death of her mother, as a way of honoring her mother’s love of flowers and travel. Dissatisfied with her first attempt at portraying a single white phlox from the artist’s garden as “a big white flower of impressive delicacy to express all the grief and love [she] was harboring,” Hensick began picking and painting in additional flowers as they bloomed. She then constructed graceful and intricate vases for the flowers, using materials from a box of her mother’s mementos (old letters, stamps, wine bottle labels, Chinese cutouts, cards from the 20’s and 30’s, postcards, and maps). The work that resulted is both universal and deeply personal. The ongoing body of work this tribute to her mother seeded is richly symbolic, and eloquently spoken in the language of flowers.

Maret Hensick earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and, from 1980-1986, studied printmaking with Leonardo Lasansky at Hamline University studios. In 1986, Hensick and her husband, native Mainer and fellow Greenhut artist, Tom Paiement, moved to Maine together to pursue their dream life as a working artist couple. Hensick enjoyed a long and successful career as a surface designer, licensing designs to over 60 companies around the world, including LL Bean, Harborside Graphics, Papyrus, Department 56, Excell Home Fashions, Pier 1, Boston Warehouse, Sellers Productions IHR and Pictura.

Throughout, Maret maintained her fine art practice as well, utilizing a broad variety of media (oil pastels, watercolors, monoprints, iPad drawings, collages, fabric paints, tissue paper, pencil, etc.) In 2020, she stepped back from surface design to focus on fine art exclusively, taking part in a four-person exhibition at Cove Street Arts. In 2021, Hensick had her first side gallery show at Greenhut, which sold out!

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