Bill Henson

Bill Henson is an Australian contemporary art photographer. His photographs are painterly tableaux that continue the traditions of romantic literature and painting. Since 1980s Henson has been working with teenagers and the anonymity that the city offers. In the darkness they can indulge in what would seem forbidden in daylight. The images are shot through with sensuality and sexuality, and the city lights illuminate a closeness between the youths that seems impenetrable to outsiders.

Bill Henson, Untitled #2, 2009/2010

“Now as the light from a row of TV screens blends with the last rays of the sun, both play over a face staring into a shop window, and as the sound of the mall dies away, imagine as that face curves off into shadow. Turn ever so slightly, a single camera movement brings the distant lights of a freeway into view, blinking through the darkening forest. And the sun goes down behind the mountains.” (Bill Henson)

Bill Henson, Untitled #20, 2000/2003

He uses darkness to isolate his subjects. “What can be most important”, Henson explains, “is what goes missing in the shadows rather than what’s clearly defined.” The first things that can be seen in the image is what is light, but when you look closer the darkness gets even more interesting. The things that disappear in the shadows stimulates imagination.

Adolescents have this sweet, dark, tumultuous sense of who they might be and how the world might be, Henson is trying to describe it in the pictures through stillness, silence and a sense of these people just being. Sometimes silence and stillness can say more than the action. Peoples thoughts and emotions are seen in their faces.

I like the way Bill Henson uses light and shadows to express the feeling. Images are minimal, there is not much going on, however they say enough for audience to understand the message.

Bibliography:

Bright, S. (2011) Art Photography Now. 2nd edn. United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson.