Derek Henderson

Derek Henderson

Teetering and cascading between beauty and visual clash, the art of Derek Henderson has, over many decades, commanded attention. He is considered the most significant contemporary photographer to come out of New Zealand.

Today, he lives globally, exhibiting his work across the world. Derek embraces well-formed allure. His photographs are full, even with his use of negative space or the oxygen that he places around an image; the artworks are always full of emotion, meaning, and inquisitive interest. Derek’s photographs are calm and often tender, even when the subject should be fierce.

In Waitoa Slaughter House #2, 2009, Derek amplifies the humanity of the slaughterhouse workers amidst what is a brutal, and possibly emotionally degrading, workplace. Because of this, I love this photograph and always have. I am continually drawn back to the drowsy, lush, cascading heroic spray of roses that can be found in the ROSA series from 2021.

Likewise, an entirely new artwork in this exhibition is the White Hydrangeas. Derek takes the beautifully botanic and masterly abstracts the flowers into the contemporary.

I will leave you with a key work from his series, The Terrible Boredom of Paradise, 2004, an exquisite, almost Gothic horror of subtext visual emotion—of growing up as a teenager in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Of growing up in the lands that gods still roam and yet being a 16-year-old seething against an imprisoning, chafing beauty. You feel it. You really feel it.

Michael Reid OAM

For acquisition enquiries, please contact hughholm@michaelreid.com.au