ARTIST STATEMENT
KINSHIP- from the series FARAS
FARAS, the Arabic word for horse, is an ongoing photographic project documenting remote horse cultures shaped by their own landscapes, histories, and traditions. It seeks to record the living relationships between people and horses before they are transformed or disappear entirely under the pressures of modernity.
The work in Lesotho forms the first chapter of this journey.
I chose the title Kinship because these images speak to a relationship that extends beyond utility or ownership. In the mountains of Lesotho, horse and rider exist in profound intimacy, travelling together, enduring the same weather, and depending on one another for survival. Their connection is inherited and deeply embodied. The horse is not separate from daily life but woven into family and identity.
Shot while travelling on horseback with Basotho riders across the highlands, this series is not intended as an ethnographic record or romantic nostalgia, but as an attempt to witness a culture from within. The Basotho pony, a small, resilient, and sure-footed creature, has shaped life in these mountains for generations, carrying people, goods, and stories across terrain that is largely inaccessible by road.
At its heart, Kinship is a meditation on companionship between species: on trust, mutual dependence, and the quiet understanding that develops over a lifetime shared together. It asks what is lost when ancient relationships between humans, animals, and the landscape begin to fade, and what it means to preserve not simply traditions, but ways of being in the world.
This exhibition marks the beginning of FARAS, a wider body of work that will extend across Africa and beyond, tracing horse cultures that continue to endure at the edges of a rapidly changing world.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Jess Henrich is a Kenyan-born artist and photographer based in Cape Town. Raised in Nairobi and immersed in horse culture from an early age, her work explores the enduring relationship between humans, animals, and the landscapes they inhabit.
Working across large-scale oil painting and fine-art photography, her paintings strip away narrative distraction to focus on presence, form, and character, while her photographic practice seeks to document living equestrian traditions that remain deeply rooted in place.
Her long-term project, FARAS, named after the Arabic word for horse, is an ongoing visual journey tracing horse cultures across Africa and beyond. Through photography, writing, and fieldwork, the project examines themes of identity, belonging, and equestrian ways of life that are increasingly threatened by rapid social and environmental change. You can read more at www.farasproject.com and on @farasproject.
Kinship, her exhibition at Youngblood, marks the first chapter of FARAS, created while travelling on horseback with Basotho riders through the mountains of Lesotho.
Previous Work
ARTIST STATEMENT
Presence
These paintings began with a simple desire: to spend time looking at horses.
For much of my life, horses have been companions, teachers, and a source of freedom. They have carried me
across landscapes and through di erent chapters of my life. Yet what continues to draw me back to them is not
their power or beauty, but their presence.
In this body of work, I wanted to strip away narrative and spectacle. Removed from the arena, the landscape,
and the rider, each horse is encountered as an individual. The paintings are less concerned with what a horse
does than with what it is.
Working in oil, I am interested in the tension between strength and gentleness, movement and stillness, familiarity
and mystery. The quiet spaces surrounding the horses are as important as the subjects themselves, inviting a slower
way of looking.
These works are an attempt to honour the dignity of the horse and the unique spirit each one carries.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Jessica Henrich is a South African artist whose work explores the relationship between humans and horses. Working primarily
in oil, she creates large-scale equine portraits that seek to capture not only the physical presence of the horse but also its
individuality.
Born in Kenya and having lived across Africa, Europe, and Asia, Henrich’s connection to horses began in childhood and has
remained a constant thread throughout her life. Her paintings are informed by decades of riding, observing, and travelling
alongside horses, resulting in works that are both deeply personal and quietly contemplative.
Through a restrained visual language and an emphasis on atmosphere, light, and form, Henrich invites viewers to encounter
each horse as an individual presence rather than a symbol or object. Her work is held in private collections internationally.
Henrich lives and works in Cape Town.
