I always wanted to be a writer but now I am a photographer. My writing was mostly depictive, so taking up photography was something I just needed to do. I am strongly influenced by the idea of decay of Western civilisation.
This perception motivated me to create a rather dark photography, evoking a dark, lazy, gloomy, suffocating atmosphere which might bring you to a point of katharsis. Although they are ‘shot as it is’, my pictures feel as if set up as a stage. This Bühne is nothing without the spectator. The spectator brings in the scenario. My pictures are meant to let your thoughts run free.
My working method is calculated. I am constantly location hunting in search for this elusive dark atmosphere. I methodically hunt the borders of the night time, the hunt always starts around the elusive ‘blue hour’. I try to photograph with a double approach. On the one hand I try to project rather neoromantic feelings in the images. On the other hand, I try to maintain a cool and distant photography. This contradiction certainly creates a certain tension in my pictures.
There are also my guiding voices, whispering from the binds of books; Tanazaki, Mishima, Brodsky, Huysmans, Wilde, Orwell and many other sublime authors. In a way, it is their ink that runs, dissolved, through my work. Dissolved, but still faintly sweet smelling. As a poison, attractive but treacherous.
About myself, Belgian photographer, °1969, started with photography in 2000 and graduated in 2009 at KASK Ghent with a specialisation degree in visual arts. Exhibitions in Belgium: Jan Colle gallery 2009, Second Room Ghent 2010, Emile Verhaerenmuseum 2010, Fotopension Köln 2012,
44 gallery Bruges 2012.
Peter Waterschoot. Ghent, Belgium.
Weekend portfolio selected by Chris Boot.
