The Opening Gallery is pleased to present Gradient maps, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Doug Henders. Installed across the 41 Division st Storefront, the works explore how perception, memory, and attention take shape through images that bypass language and circulate faster than thought, shaping how attention is captured and experienced. Spray-painted abstractions and biomorphic forms suggest imagined landscapes while simultaneously turning inward—toward the body, intuition, and shared experience. The work proposes mapping not as a fixed system, but as a fluid process shaped by feeling, movement, and time.

Created using industrial spray guns, rollers, and stencils, the painting allows color and spatial depth to emerge fluidly, without fixed hierarchy or narrative. Layered surfaces create a sense of ambient space, where color and gesture circulate freely. Henders’ use of stencils—often evolving into sculptural works—blurs the boundary between process and product. Familiar forms—faces, gestures, and fragments of visual memory—surface and dissolve, hovering between recognition and ambiguity.

Gradient maps reflects a contemporary condition in which seeing and experiencing are increasingly shaped by scanning, repetition, and image circulation. The work invites slower looking and open interpretation, offering painting as a space where attention becomes something felt, chosen, and continually in motion.

The works examine how perception and attention are shaped in an image-saturated environment, where images circulate rapidly and bypass language. Using spray-painted abstractions, biomorphic forms, and layered surfaces, Henders approaches mapping as a fluid, intuitive process rather than a fixed system, inviting sustained looking in contrast to the speed of contemporary image culture.