Tree No.6 2004

Curator: Gazing at this work, I’m instantly transported to some secluded, almost mythical grove. It's an escape into an interior landscape, wouldn't you say? Editor: Absolutely! It's like stepping into a dream…a blue-green dream, maybe slightly melancholic. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but it does resonate with a deep, quiet sense of solitude. Curator: I find it so fascinating how Henderson used acrylics to evoke such depth and movement in "Tree No.6," created back in 2004. It’s classified as expressionist but seems to pull from many streams. Did the title catch your eye at all? Editor: It's very…minimal, wouldn't you say? Considering the painterly chaos happening on the canvas? One might think this 'number six' could refer to the sixth tree in the forest—a significant spot where secret meetings occur. Curator: Hah! A secret rendezvous! It could be! These colors... there's a lot of cool greens and blues, yet Henderson throws in these hot lines of reds to keep us on our toes. A very particular choice of using line I suspect. Almost arbitrary lines. Editor: True. And observe the figure near the water...almost obscured. Is it just me or do their clothes invoke feelings of traditional labourer class dress wear? And look how the tree seems to almost offer the person into a space between the trunks! Symbolically loaded. Curator: Perhaps that isolated figure is Henderson himself, retreating into nature's embrace. Do you think the expressionist style is used to mask realism? Editor: Perhaps not to mask—I don’t want to go too Freudian on the work— but reveal perhaps what we cannot express in literal forms, and that nature may appear disordered but operates on deep-set principles nonetheless. Curator: Wonderful reflection, so from all that, any lingering sentiments for you after our journey together? Editor: I keep seeing the contrast, how vibrant gestures are also met with muted ones… it reminds us that complexity creates a feeling of intimacy as well as quiet loneliness.