Bill Henson (born 1955) is an Australian contemporary art photographer.
Henson’s art has been exhibited in many locations, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. His current practice involves holding one exhibition in Australia every two years, and up to three overseas exhibitions each year.
Henson’s photographs reflect an interest in ambiguity and transition. The use of chiaroscuro is common throughout his works. His photographs are painterly and often presented as diptychs, triptychs and other groupings.
Henson’s works often meditate on the categories of and relationships between male and female; youth and adulthood; day and night; light and dark; nature and civilisation. His images often use flattened perspective and tend towards abstraction. The faces of the subjects are often blurred or partly shadowed and do not directly face the viewer.
According to Crawford, Henson presents “adolescents in their states of despair, intoxication and immature ribaldry”. He has said that these “moments of transition and metamorphosis are important in everyone’s lives”.
Henson’s intention is to use photography for creative expression. He states that he is not interested in a political or sociological agenda, although the viewer cannot help but relate his works to their own stance on these issues. Henson, however, is not intending his photographs to be authoritative evidence but rather to suggest endless possibilities and cause people to wonder.
Henson studied Visual Arts and Design 1974-1975 at Prahran College of Advanced Education where Athol Shmith was head of the Photography program. He did not complete the diploma, but the nineteen-year-old Henson’s work was promoted by Shmith to Jenny Boddington, curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Victoria with the result that Henson’s first solo show was exhibited there in 1975 . He taught briefly at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.
http://www.tolarnogalleries.com/bill-henson/
