William Yang: Landscapes

Thu 5 Aug 2021

If you know the work of Australian photographer William Yang, it’s usually his photographs of people and communities that you will be familiar with. Yang captures joyous, confessional and deeply human stories that are heartfelt and intimate in many of his portraits, often writing the narrative about his subject or the moment captured on film directly on to the image.

The major survey exhibition ‘William Yang: Seeing and Being Seen’ aims to bring the varied thematic explorations of William Yang together with a particular emphasis on landscape photography. Yang began taking shots of landscapes from very early in his career and while his studies of people tend to take the limelight, his landscapes are just as mesmerising and revelatory.

Yang applies a similar process to both his landscape photography and his portraiture — he records a personal connection and is closely attentive to his subject. Often shooting in the heart of the bush or forest, his camera’s viewpoint is embedded deep within the scene, gazing up into a canopy, closely studying the bark of a tree, or looking out from under leaves across a lake.

The natural landscape is integral to Yang’s practice. His emotional connection to the landscape is often scribed onto his images of the natural world and reflects the artist’s diaristic approach to his work. These narratives are often when he is at his most philosophical, reflecting on his connection to place and how his immersion in the natural world evokes a contemplative, if not spiritual, state.

“When I became Taoist I came to appreciate nature in the form of landscape as a source and a driving force behind everything that existed. It was constantly changing and renewing itself. Everything about nature was beautiful because it was essentially always itself.” The Tree and I William Yang 2010

Rosie Hays is Associate Curator, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA, and Curator of ‘William Yang: Seeing and Being Seen’

Featured image: William Yang / The Tree and I 2010 / Inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag / 34 x 50cm / Collection: William Yang / © William Yang