David Stephenson: Human Landscapes

Overview

You might already be acquainted with the work of David Stephenson — a prominent American-by-birth photographer who now lives and works in Hobart, Tasmania. Human Landscapes at the Art Gallery of NSW showcases a collection of Stephenson's landscape photography drawn from the gallery's collection.

The exhibition aims to highlight his subversion of traditional approaches to the medium, which charges his work with the ability to alter both the way we look at the world and how we consider our own place within it. Engaging with philosophical concepts using a poetic but minimalist sensibility, Stephenson's photography ultimately transmits the transcendental force of the landscape.

Human Landscapes will collate a number of Stephenson's early works, including his romantic pinhole photographs of majestic seas, skies and expansive panoramas from the 1980s. Also featured are his starker — yet still poignant — pieces shot in the Antarctic during the 1990s. Fans of landscape photography definitely shouldn't miss this.

Image: David Stephenson, The Zinc Works and Mount Wellington from Store Point, Tasmania (2004), from the series Marking time (2003-05). Art Gallery of New South Wales, gift of the artist (2011) ©  David Stephenson. Photo: Diana Panuccio, AGNSW.