Hello, my name is Darren Henderson and I have loved playing around with art and being creative all my life. I was born at Traralgon Victoria in 1972 and lived in Gippsland Victoria for 12 years, then moved with my family to Batemans Bay on the South Coast of NSW where I still live now. I finish high school at the end of year 11 in 1989 when I decided that I wanted to become a qualified chef and started a 4 year long apprenticeship at the Catalina Golf Club in Batemans Bay NSW and became qualified in 1994.
On the 18/12/1995, I was working at the Catalina Golf Club when a commercial roller door slipped on it's gearing and rolled down onto the top of my head giving me a cervical spinal cord injury called Syringomyelia which is a sack of fluid inside the spinal cord. I also have chronic nerve damage with compressed nerve exits C5,6 and 7 on my neck and chronic C8/T1 right side Radiculopathy.
In 2013 I had to stop working due to pain and since 2020 I have been on a Disability Support Pension.
In 2014 I started experimenting and producing artworks. I became inspired by items from nature like paperbark, drift wood, seed pods, flowers, sea shells and anything that looked different that I might be able to do something with.
Now it's 2024 and I now have 30 artworks nearly finish but my spinal cord injury and nerve damage has now weakened my arms, legs, hands, feet, neck and head with whole body pain progressively getting worse and worse.
My spinal cord injury will not be operated on and the average life expectancy is 30 years from the date of injury. It has now been 29 years since the injury date and I am constantly in pain from head to toe and find it very painful to stand still and my arms are becoming weak and restricted.
I have had no formal training in making artworks and have just kept persisting with art and have now become a lot more confident with my artworks and very happy with the end result.
I have eight artworks still to finish before I stop painting and creating art.