Gallery Opening Reception Details
When: Friday, Jan. 19 from 6-8 pm with an artist talk at 7 pm
Where: The Gallery at Coram Deo, 8787 Pacific Street, Omaha, NE 68114
Details: Drinks and refreshments will be served and children are welcome.
The exhibit is open M-F 9-4 pm and on Sunday mornings
Weekday viewing reservations are requested: 402-505-4111
The exhibit runs from Jan. 19 to March 17
Timothy Henze | Exhibition Statement
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. Luke 18:17
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. Luke 11:34
Years ago, I wrote the following purpose statement for my photography.
Why Photograph? To practice the spiritual disciplines of seeing differently and freely experiment with seeing differently; finding order in chaos; uncovering beauty in the simple, unexpected, forgotten and discarded; recognizing God’s hand in what is overlooked and often missed; revealing design in that which is thought to be random; knowing and understanding a place by visual exploration and documenting individual moments of that exploration.
Photography for me is very much about exploration and discovery. When I go out with my camera, I pick a place, a street, a neighborhood, or area of the city and commit to it for a period of time and apply the self-imposed principles above.
The unique quality of the medium of photography is the ability to freeze a moment in time as it presents itself before the camera. Nothing I see in any given place or time will ever look the same again. The light changes throughout the day and then throughout the year as the sun moves to different positions and casts different shadows, highlighting different colors. The weather changes and objects are moved, added, and removed, changing what is before our eyes. How often do we as adults hurry by in our cars with eyes locked on the road or walk down the street either hurried through crowds or traffic or glued to our cell phones unaware of the ever-changing details before our eyes? We, in the busyness of our world, are mostly oblivious to the wondrous details of creation that are right before our eyes every moment of every day. My photography becomes for me a personal meditation to keep my eyes and perhaps the eyes of others healthy and aware, to stave off the boredom that creeps in and continuously renew perspectives to always savor the wondrous and constantly changing variety that is the visual banquet of God’s creation; to keep awe and wonder alive so that we may all enter the Kingdom of God like children.
The process of discovery does not end after the shutter is pressed. Landscape photographer Lewis Baltz said:
“Anyone can take pictures. What’s difficult is thinking about them, organizing them, and trying to use them in some way so that some meaning can be constructed out of them. That’s really where the work of the artist begins.”
In college, photography students were taught to intentionally take time and live with their photographs for a few reasons. First, it is possible to get unrealistically enamored with an image in the photographing, developing, and printing stages so that time is required to break that bond and enable one to see if an image really stands out. Similarly, time will cause one to get bored with the truly mediocre images and filter them out. Lastly and most importantly time allows a photographer to learn from their photographs - to see patterns, ideas and issues in their images that they could not see before. Often the most poignant themes are the ones seen while editing photographs after they are taken.
I am a person who is naturally drawn to connection. I look for patterns and relationships that tie people and things together. When speaking to new people I look for common ground that creates starting points for empathy, ultimately believing that all people and things are connected and all things happen for a reason. This was confirmed as my number one strength when I completed the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment for a leadership seminar. Connectedness is described as “faith in the links between all things ... there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason (Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, Tom Rath, Gallup Press, 2008, p. 139).” Through my experience of having assembled previous portfolios and curated previous exhibits of both my own work and the work of others, I have found I love finding connections tying work together or connections providing some logic or purpose to the inclusion and arrangement of images.
After assembling a show of my work for the 402 Art Collective at Hardy Coffee in March 2016, I started putting together groups of ten images that complement and expound each other. I found, after assembling 17 collections of 10 images — eight of which are included in this exhibit, the images are stronger visually as a group than individually. Presenting these images linked together through some visual component helps me in my search for the foundation of a divine aesthetic vocabulary, acknowledging formal visual elements as the creative building blocks of a grand designer. Repetition, in my “connectivity-wired” brain, implies intentionality. Repeating patterns within abstractions, serving as distillations of the real world, reveal a divine serendipity pointing to the truth that there is no design by humans or nature that has not been first willed by the hand of God through Jesus Christ regardless of any human awareness of that will.
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. Colossians 1:16
Artist Bio
Timothy Henze was 13 years old when he developed his first roll of 35 mm black and white film in his basement with his dad. In high school, he was encouraged by a favorite teacher to pursue studying photography in college. After school, he worked for Agri-Graphics, a nationally known photographer of dairy cattle in their black and white print darkroom. Timothy studied photography at Columbia College Chicago in the south Loop, graduating in 1989. For three of his four years at Columbia College, Timothy worked as a student intern at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. In the summer of 1988, Timothy was awarded the Kodak Professional Photography Scholarship at Columbia College. His first solo exhibit was in March 1989 at the Woodstock Opera House in Woodstock, Illinois. For an independent study project in Museum and Curatorial Studies with the museum director, Timothy curated the Columbia College End of the Year Student Juried Exhibitions for art and photography and curated the Graduate Thesis in Photography Exhibition.
After graduation, Timothy moved to Denver to work as an assistant in a photography gallery in the Cherry Creek area. After working there for one year Timothy left to begin preparation for pastoral ministry at the Iliff School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Denver. Timothy graduated with his Master of Divinity and was ordained to pastoral ministry in the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Methodist Church in the summer of 1993. The bishop appointed him to serve two rural churches 20 miles outside of Great Falls, Montana for one year. He was then appointed to Scobey and Opheim United Methodist Parish in the North East corner of Montana where he served as solo pastor for eight years. While in Scobey and Opheim, Tim continued to photograph the landscapes in the area and began the transition to digital photography. After Scobey and Opheim, Timothy left pastoral ministry and moved to Jackson, Wyoming where his parents were living. A small church south of Jackson called him to preach on a part-time basis for a few years while working full-time at the Jackson State Bank & Trust. He continued to do photography in his spare time and took on a few freelance photography jobs in Jackson. With the sale of the bank in 2008, Tim followed a friend to First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska.
In Omaha, Tim began photographing various areas around the city. 2011 brought Kim Elliott into his life and they married in 2014. Tim organized and prepped for a solo exhibit of photographs at the 402 Gallery at Hardy Coffee in Benson in March of 2016 at about the same time that he started working for Heartland Family Service. Ian was born in 2016 and Tim found he loved photographing Ian so much he decided to start For Real Baby Photography as a side hustle photographing children and families. He continues to get several clients a year as an incentive to keep it going. Tim held positions as an Early Childhood Specialist and a Housing Navigator assisting homeless men at Open Door Mission before leaving Heartland Family Service in October 2023. Tim continues to photograph all around the Omaha/Council Bluffs Metro Area. In addition to photography, Timothy loves to play harmonica (especially with the worship team), hike and backpack in the mountains, downhill and cross-country ski, and cheer on the Chicago Cubs. Tim and Kim have been attending Coram Deo Church since they were married and have been members since 2017. He is always looking for opportunities to share his photographs.