This work is a copper replica of a painting, cast with precision using a process known as electrotyping. The fine details of Henderson’s original, thickly-textured paintings are captured exactingly into the surface of rubber molds. Submerged in a chemical bath, the electrotyping process slowly deposits copper ions into Henderson’s molds by way of an electrical current. The artist chooses to destroy the original paintings such that the final copper sculptures serve as a kind of documentation of artworks that no longer exist.
Adding to the complexity, each work in this series is marked by a unique patina that is the result of chance effect: a silver mixture that is used to render the rubber molds electrically conductive unpredictably transfers into the copper surfaces. Henderson embraces these irregular compositions as a kind of automatic painting. According to the artist: “There is a poetic contrast between the control necessary to capture the surface of an object with such verisimilitude and the decision to allow the copy ‘repaint’ itself.”