How the contemporary social landscape is shaped and how that social landscape shapes contemporary behavior is the subject of Paula Henderson's work. In the series of paintings that use abstracted representations of basketball courts, Henderson repeats the dynamic and often colorful lines that divide basketball courts into zones of play to create intricate patterns.
The paintings evoke fabrics and weavings, observing the social fabric that binds us all. They also comment on the place of sports in contemporary American life. Henderson writes, "I perceive that productions as seemingly unrelated as entertainment (here professional sports) or graphic illustrations (maps and other schematics) are experienced with such familiarity that their determinative nature is masked just below their finished surfaces. The complexity of these enterprises is, so to speak, hidden in plain sight. It is the intersections of the histories, practices, and authority of these productions as well as our relationship to them that constitute the conceptual and formal aspects of my query."
The paintings evoke fabrics and weavings, observing the social fabric that binds us all. They also comment on the place of sports in contemporary American life. Henderson writes, "I perceive that productions as seemingly unrelated as entertainment (here professional sports) or graphic illustrations (maps and other schematics) are experienced with such familiarity that their determinative nature is masked just below their finished surfaces. The complexity of these enterprises is, so to speak, hidden in plain sight. It is the intersections of the histories, practices, and authority of these productions as well as our relationship to them that constitute the conceptual and formal aspects of my query."
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