Bill Henson Show Opens at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
Dark, grainy and full of shadows Bill Henson’s latest show draws on 35 mm colour film shot in New York City in 1989.
Related articles
Bill Henson is one of Australia’s best-known contemporary photographers. When a show by this calibre of artist opens here, the art world waits with bated breath to see what he will unveil.
This time, he presents a historically important landscape series that chronicles a time in New York City that no longer exists. It’s a nostalgic trip back in time, a nocturnal odyssey through the frenetic, neon-lit streets of a long-lost America.
Known for his chiaroscuro style, Henson’s cinematic photographs often transform his subject into ambiguous objects of beauty. This time round, the show presents a mysterious walk through the streets of Manhattan, evoking a seedy, yet beautiful vision of the city.
Relying on generative gaps, these landscapes result from Henson mining his archive of negatives and manipulating them to produce a finished print. Sometimes, they are composed by a principle of magnification, with Henson honing in on details, and sometimes, they are created through areas of black being expanded to make the scene more cinematic and foreboding. Like silence in a film or the pause in a pulse, the black suggests the things you can’t see.
Henson’s illustrious career has spanned four decades and was memorably marred by controversy over a series of nude adolescent photographs shown in 2008, which made him front-page news for weeks. This series of portraits made Henson the subject of a police investigation during which no offence was found.
In recent years, Henson has been a sharp critic of cancel culture, encouraging artists to contribute something that will have lasting value and add to the conversation, rather than tearing down the past.
His work deals with the liminal space between the mystical and the real, the seen and unseen, the boundary between youth and adulthood.
His famous Paris Opera Project, 1990-91, pictured above, is similarly intense as the current show, dwelling on the border between the painterly and the cinematic.
Bill Henson’s ‘The Liquid Night’ runs until 11 May 2024 at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 8 Soudan Ln, Paddington NSW; roslynoxley9.com.au
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Recommended for you
Valentino’s New Spin on the L’École Collection
This weekend Sydneysiders are getting schooled on the art of dance by Maison Valentino.
March 22, 2024
Saint Laurent Just Opened a New Bookstore in Paris. Here’s a Look Inside.
The chic new outpost is located on the city’s arty Left Bank.
February 14, 2024