Artists statement

Melbourne looking east from the Rialto Tower 2009 is a sprawling, cinematic view of Melbourne’s CBD. In his Light Cities series, Stephenson explores notions of human and technological achievement against environmental sustainability. The glowing city in Melbourne looking east from the Rialto Tower seems the perfect emblem of our industrialized culture: an extraordinary example of a monumental technological sublime, where awe, beauty, and human aspiration are tinged with potential environmental catastrophe ¬– our engine of modernity seemingly running on empty. Melbourne, in particular, with its bay surrounding the city, makes it highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Stephenson’s work, therefore, gives further urgency to a close scrutiny of the evolving modern city.

Stephenson moved to Australia in 1982 to teach photography at the University of Tasmania School of Art, where he completed his PhD in Fine Art in 2001. He lives and works in Hobart.

Historical information

For more than 30 years, David Stephenson has travelled the globe, producing startlingly beautiful landscapes and cityscapes that illuminate or allude to that which cannot normally be seen. A fascination for the vast in space and time has led him to Europe, the Himalayas, and both the Arctic and Antarctic. He is one of Australia’s most well known and celebrated contemporary photographers with a practice that focuses on the sublime in architecture and in nature.