Bill Henson retrospective

Bill Henson AO is one of Australia’s greatest living artists. With a career spanning fifty years, his virtuosic artistry continues to unfold in powerful, haunting images that explore the timeless mystery of the human condition. As the art critic John McDonald wrote ‘nothing can prepare us for the experience of standing in front of these works’.

The ultimately ambiguous nature of Henson’s pictures reinforces the priority of individual experience sending us back into ourselves. There is no ‘correct’ way of experiencing art - we each go on our own journey of discovery. Within that world of experience and imagination, feeling leads us to understanding. As Robert Hughes said: ‘meaning comes from feeling, if you don’t feel anything it’ll never mean much to you’.

“In today’s world, political noise and much earnest box-ticking have obscured the essential nature of creativity. What makes one brush-stroke compelling and another of no consequence? Aesthetics. There are tens of thousands of people who can play the piano extremely well but a mere handful who can play the piano and make us feel like we’re in a thunderstorm – and there’s nothing we can do about it. Virtuosity may well be the last refuge of art.

With objects, however, their great power emanates firstly from stillness and silence. In the cacophony of an ever more kinetic world it is the mediative power of stillness and silence that continues to affect the great intelligence of the body – indeed, ever more profoundly.” –Bill Henson, 2025