Recent work by Barb Henderson

Before this review I want to highlight some other recent work. This week on the Conversation I co-published with Wurundjeri Elders Aunty Alice Kolasa, Aunty Di Kerr and Jacqui Wandin an introduction to the ongoing task of locating William Barak's missing paintings. It is an immense joy and the culmination of our ongoing work. So, check your attics!

On colour and itching to paint

Displayed on a single wall in a tight group, ten of Barb Henderson's paintings sing out from Cam's Kiosk at the Abbotsford Convent. They're lit with the natural light that floods in from the Convent's iconic courtyard; bright and colourful enough to catch your eye from across the cafe on a grey Melbourne day. Colour is Henderson's signature, as is a delicate abstract layering of experimental forms and materials. These works are acrylic paint on card (Gruppo Cordenons) with occasional collaged paper accents. The shapes in many of these works are reminiscent of flowers, leaves, rocks or hills, but the layers of colour also take the eye into purely emotional realms. 

The exhibition’s title Recent work emphasises the ‘work’ part of artwork, as though to remind us that ‘artist’ is also a job title and art making is labour. (And therefore it warrants recognition within our current framework of neoliberal capitalism.) Henderson is a well-established artist in her 70s who exhibits regularly around Narrm/Melbourne and from her studio in Croydon. She was an art teacher for many years and it’s reasonable to say her life has been dedicated to exploring the creative process.

While this exhibition is focused on painting, there is one textile work of delicate embroidery. Henderson has also previously exhibited Ukrainian pysanky decorated Easter eggs – a technique involving layers of wax and dye on chicken eggs to form colourful patterns.

The first painting in this show is a series of tall oval shapes, as well as smaller circles nuzzling together. There are light blues, strong reds and pinks, yellows and greens and a gentle violet corner with and overlayed orange shape. It's abstract, certainly, but when I read the title, Babuska, I begin to see these shapes nestled together and I think of the Russian dolls: intimate and warm, layered and maternal. 

In the second painting Henderson has again chosen a clear subject and layering colours and textures. Or perhaps the subject emerged only once the painting process was underway? This one has dark, almost black areas, as well as glowing golden planes receding into a sort of horizon. Blue oblongs, like splashes of water, giveaway the title which is Waterfall and water sprites (2020). There is a playful energy here evoking the water sprites, but there is also a feeling of twilight mischief, as though while the sun is setting these excitable beings are frolicking in the waterfall. This is purely my imagining, but Henderson's work has an open unpretentious quality that invites it.

Henderson’s experimental layering of colours and mediums is evident in Lotus Flowers (2025). In spite of the many layers built from washes of acrylics over each other, there is nothing muddy about the colours. And standing in the centre are two blue lotuses with a third reaching in from the side. I can almost sense the feeling of making these layers: like reaching into the unknown until suddenly the lotus flowers appear and she knows the work is complete. The blues set off the golden in the right corner, while elsewhere yellows and oranges weave through the work.

Henderson’s work is deceptive like this. On first looking it’s easy to miss the skill she has with colour, she makes it look whimsical, spontaneous and dare I say, easy. But making acrylics appear like watercolours, complete with drips, wet uneven strokes, requires patience: each layer must surely be dry before adding the next. The longer I look the more I think I am undertaking a masterclass in using colour.

My eye is not bored because the shapes delivering the yellows, oranges and blues onto the paper move me across the page and back again along curves punctuated by three straight lotus stems.

Another abstract work, African bride (2021) depicts, to me, a face turned away from the viewer with suggestions of the eponymous bride’s hair and neck composed of pasted on paper and pastels in red. This work has a lighter background but includes moody greens and earthy reds alongside the browns where these two colours intersect. Before I saw the title I was drawn to this work because I could see a woman, turned into the wind with shoulders slightly forward and her profile looking to the right. A narrative unfolded when I read the title. Here is evidence of Henderson’s associative process and I wonder if she drew out the subject matter from abstract shapes, or if the woman was known to her before she began? If it was the former, setting out without a clear destination, this is a special power the imagination gifts us.

If Henderson’s approach involves dancing with serendipity and appreciating what emerges on the page through experiments in colour and form, then Silver rocks and hidden treasure (year), reveals where this way of seeing can take us. The lower half of this vertical landscape is composed rock shapes, muted tones over a brighter background which fills the top half of the page. Moments of yellow, green, orange and blue peak through geological layers giving a strong sense of the subterranean world below the earth’s surface. There is light there and life forces, unseen to the naked eye. Their power is immense but delicate, if Henderson’s brushstrokes are any indication.

The textural qualities of the works, combined with the playful and deeply felt use of colour, makes me itch to paint. My fingers get that restless feeling when I see works like this. And it’s not the first time it’s happened in front of Henderson’s works.

In 2013, I reviewed Henderson’s exhibition TRANSFORMATIONS: the hidden beauty of ordinary things at Steps Gallery on Lygon Street. I admired how seemingly mundane subjects had inspired light-filled compositions, some almost abstract. Twelve years later and Henderson’s practice is rock solid; it continues to accomplish a deep exploration of creativity and imagination, the calibre of which I believe we only occasionally come across. This is an artist who practices and lives her art as part of a life lived in appreciation of the wonder as well as the questions that drive us.

Much of Henderson’s inspiration comes from the world around her and specifically her suburban garden. She has collaborated with her husband Jim, also an ex-teacher, on a book about how to age well. Together they show what it looks like to dedicate significant time to exploring the self through art. I stand by the closing line from my 2013 view of Henderson’s work, which seems as pertinent as ever: If we cannot learn to look at the world around us with keen eyes we may lose our ability to appreciate its unique beauty.

I’m looking at Henderson’s work on a short trip to Melbourne, appreciating the moment to contemplate her bright colours and her own dedication to looking. My job sees me checking on Birrarung, aka the Yarra River. I walk along a stretch I never saw as a resident, below the Abbottsford Convent where Henderson’s paintings are displayed. I see rock formations I didn’t know where present in the suburban reach of Australia’s only river given the status of a living entity. Birrarung is alive, Wurundjeri people have known this for millennia and now they lead the care of the river. My job assists the Birrarung Council, now chaired by Wurundjeri Elder Uncle Andrew Gardiner, to ensure politicians and policy makers know what it means to be custodians of Birrarung. And perhaps soon, all rivers on this continent will be afforded such understandings.

What does this have to do with Henderson’s artistic labour? To me, the worlds she conjures in colour are synonymous with a way of seeing that appreciates, among other things, the living river and the realms beyond what is visible to the human eye but deserve to thrive regardless.

Barb Henderson Recent work is on display from 12 September – 3 November 2025, Cam’s Kiosk, Abbotsford Convent Narrm/Melbourne.