A few questions with street artist Hense

• http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
• Hense, “Untitled” Silkscreen and acrylic on canvas 58x58 inches

The artist Hense needs little introduction in Atlanta. If you’ve lived here for almost any period of time, you’ve probably seen some of the work from his prolific career, whether it is his commissioned murals along the Beltline or in Castleberry Hill or the massive street art that put his name out into the world years ago. That high profile may be one of the reasons he was named in a recent, $1 million lawsuit aimed at street artists and businesses. In recent years, though, his increasingly abstract paintings have been appearing in galleries more often than the outdoors.

In his latest body of work, Mark Making in Black and White, Hense is working with pure abstraction and a constrained palette. Not unlike Jose Parla, these paintings seem to be drawing from the chaotic texture and lines of layered graffiti and recontextualizing them on canvas. We caught up with him to ask a few questions about the work before the show opens at Sandler Hudson on Friday.

When did you start working on this current body of work?

I’ve been working on these pieces for the past year. I’m using silkscreen and acrylic to create black and white images on canvas and wood. I’ll also be showing some small black and white drawings on paper. I basically take transparencies and create marks on them with aerosol and acrylic. I then burn the screen and layer prints on top of prints with ink and acrylic.