Bill Henson combines a taste for mystery with precise execution to produce emotionally intense, yet removed, photographs on a grand scale. Henson's portraits feature androgynous, glamorously pallid models, or the fringe spaces of cities and towns. His subjects, whether people or places, suggest estrangement, transition, and insecurity. Dim lighting splits young bodies like abstract terrains, shifting them into vague metaphorical environments caught in limbo between innocence and maturity, safety and endangerment, submission and domination. To complement these studies, Henson turns his eye toward the Australian landscape and a suburban park at dusk. Building up light and texture, he transforms the resulting trees, watering holes, and wayward clouds into fantastic, hyper-real illustrations.

-JG