Title

Bill Henson.

Collective title

A National Gallery of Victoria travelling exhibition

Venues

Art Gallery of Western Australia. (16 September 2017 – 11 December 2017)

Date

(2017)

Summary

Single-artist exhibition. Located: Australia: (VIC; WA). Photographs

Curator

Susan Van Wyk, Senior Curator Photography, National Gallery of Victoria

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

This exhibition presents recent photographs by Bill Henson, selected by the artist, and encompassing themes including portraits, nudes, lush museum interiors and transcendent landscapes. The images in this show are drawn from a body of works created between 2008 and 2013, and continue Henson’s sensitive study of the human condition, which he has realised over his forty-year career. Each of the works included has a palpable sense of the cinematic and together they form an enigmatic imaginative statement. Like much of his work, there is little that is explicit, and rather the works propose open-ended narratives and capture a transitory sensation. A powerful sense of mystery and ambiguity can be found within the images, heightened by the deep blackness of the shadows and the striking use of chiaroscuro to selectively obscure and reveal the form of the nudes, sculptures and the landscape itself. [AGWA media]