Her work engages with the embodied experience of the everyday, unfolding through a visual language in which the physical and the abstract intersect. The paintings give form to shifting personal states of being, shaped by tensions between discomfort and pleasure, fear and excitement. In this way, her practice extends beyond representation towards a broader exploration of human expression and the interplay between image, sound and motion.

Guided by an “embodied experience of the everyday,” Hennessey’s bold visual language is influenced by the physical sensations of painting, as well as more concrete influences, such as dance, movement, and women painters with a fearless, visceral visual style, such as Maria Lassnig and Dana Schultz. She recognises in these artists their ability to “let paint behave like a living thing rather than an image, where sensation feels lodged in the surface.”

“My influences drift between painting, writing, and whatever the body is doing that day.” The artist told The Wick, adding that “Dance matters just as much to me. I keep returning to Pina Bausch and Yvonne Rainer because they allow bodies to exist without fixing them into something tidy or legible. Writing is always there too. Clarice Lispector and Maggie Nelson make language feel like it has a pulse, something fluid and unresolved.”

Winning the Freelands Painting Prize in 2024 “was the first time something I’d made in private felt properly seen in public. I remember thinking, oh, it really does leave the room after all. I’m proud of that moment.”

Bunny’s champion for The Wick is Martin Mayorga. He said: “I first met Bunny Hennessey years ago, when I was invited to join a panel talk as part of the Anise Gallery Summer School, where she had been selected as part of a small cohort. After speaking, what stood out immediately was her openness and clarity in how she articulated her work. At the time, she had just completed her undergraduate degree at City & Guilds and was about to begin her MFA at Slade and she approached me with very thoughtful and engaged questions. Visiting her studio later brought everything into focus. She spoke about her paintings with a directness and excitement that matched the work itself. The paintings are large, physical, and full of unexpected colour and gesture, driven by a process of thinking through paint rather than settling on a fixed style. Her work has an immediate impact. The colour can feel challenging, but never decorative, and the paintings remain open, energetic, and emotionally direct. They invite time, reflection, and return. Since then, I’ve followed her practice closely and see her at a pivotal moment, with work that feels ambitious, confident, and forward-looking.”