Julia Couzens reviews Mike Henderson: Traces of Places at Haines Gallery, San Francisco, on view through June 28, 2014.

Couzens writes: "One strength of Henderson’s paintings is that they offer visual forms that don’t appear to be directed by a catalogue of art historical references or skilled projections of what he “knows” about painting. The paintings seem to materialize from his relinquishing of control and of his understanding of what preexists. They appear to emerge from an almost sub-earthen place where form, plane, surface and rhythm coalesce. His resolute attachment to materiality, to the physical stuff of painting, and his impulse for play brings forth work laden with particles of meaning and intricate micro-references: to broken-down shacks, peeling paint, driving rain, suffocating heat and textiles."