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Internationally renowned photographer Bill Henson is a passionate and visionary explorer of twilight zones, between day and night, nature and civilization, youth and adulthood, male and female. Bill Henson's photographs of landscapes at dusk, of the industrial no-man's land at the outskirts of our cities, of androgynous girls and boys adrift in the nocturnal turmoil of adolescence are painterly tableaux that continue the traditions of romantic literature and painting. The rich chiaroscuro, the oscillating light, and the masterful composition of his photographs map enigmatic states that escape rationalism's iron grip, providing a much-needed antidote to a culture that increasingly looses itself in a numbing vortex of blinking screens and glittering surfaces.
Henson's compelling images invoke the descriptive powers of baroque and brooding. His images, forever nocturnal, are dark, sonorous and laden with seductive threat.
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The Australian Prime Minister called them 'absolutely revolting'. Their removal from a Sydney art gallery was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as a 'Victory for Decency'. Cate Blanchett and members of the arts community claimed charges laid over them would affect Australia's cultural reputation. Only now do we have the opportunity to hear the full story behind the Bill Henson photographs, which grabbed national attention in May 2008 when 20 images were removed from an exhibition and the photographer was investigated for child pornography. David Marr, author of Dark Victory and the award-winning biography Patrick White: A Life, examines the pornography/art debate with exclusive interviews with Bill Henson, members of the NSW police force, child abuse campaigners and important figures in the Australian arts scene.
Bill Henson (born 1955) is one of Australia's leading contemporary photographers. His powerful and edgy images approach the painterly and the cinematic, bringing formal and classical qualities to the gritty, casual dramas of the everyday. This publication presents a selection of images, compiled by the artist, that range from sublime landscapes and nudes to classical sculpture shown in museum settings, all heightened by the velvet-like blackness of the shadows and the striking use of chiaroscuro to selectively obscure and reveal form. Henson's nudes portray his subjects as self-contained, focused on internal reveries; his landscapes are photographed at twilight, underscoring the transitional mood of the moment; and his museum images juxtapose graceful marble statues against the transfixed visitors observing them. Beautiful, enigmatic and unforgettable, Henson's images enliven our own sense of being.
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