B.

Henderson’s Gillies Avenue home was built within a stand of native forest clinging to the lower slopes of Maungawhau Mount Eden. Its trees and shrubs rose up on three sides around her studio, placing her at the centre of the bush. She co-opted this viewpoint for many of her paintings from the 1960s and 1970s, in which ferns, branches and trunks seem to surround the viewer, creating a lush and immersive atmosphere. Henderson was especially attracted to the intricate patterns of light and shadow she experienced in the Waitakere Ranges, and the influence of the tropical vegetation she encountered during her regular visits to Rarotonga is also apparent in her work from this period.

(Louise Henderson: From Life, 27 June – 11 October 2020)

At a time in her career when many might have expected her to slow down or even retire, French-born Louise Henderson embarked upon one of her most ambitious creative projects. The Twelve Months distilled her impressions of her life in Aotearoa New Zealand into a dozen tall canvases, filtering the rhythms of the year through her ‘abstract poetic of nature’. Borrowing their proportions from the elegant ‘double square’ of her studio windows, they combined two important aspects of her practice: the all-seeing viewpoints and organisational principles of cubism and the ability to use colour to evoke both form and atmosphere. Often inspired by the view through her window, Henderson manipulated a complex set of variables, considering how the seasons affected the weather and landscape, the changing light and position of the sun, and the fluctuating activities, rituals and moods of people in both the city and the countryside.

In the ‘winter’ months, June and July, Henderson skilfully balanced colour, form and movement to evoke rain-laden clouds, drenched fields and cold, boisterous winds.