The fourth edition of the PORTRAIT(S) festival of Vichy opens its doors today. Until September 4th Vichy is an outpost of today’s photography for a season and is presenting to the public some exhibitions centered exclusively around the art of the portrait. This new edition is showing nine artists whose exhibitions are taking place simultaneously in the city center and outside , in the open air. L’Oeil de la Photographie brings you the work of one photographer from the programme every day. Today, focus on « Portraits Untitled » by Hellen van Meene.
Over the last 20 years, Hellen van Meene has produced a complex body of work, offering a contemporary take on photographic portraiture.
Characterized by her exquisite use of light, formal elegance and palpable psychological tension, her depictions of girls and boys on the cusp of adulthood demonstrate a clear aesthetic lineage to seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Van Meene captures the intimacy in the photographer– subject relationship, bringing out a sense of honesty and vulnerability from within her models and highlighting the beauty of imperfection. She carefully poses her subjects in their environments to emphasize their fragility, adding a palpable tension to the photographs. At the same time, she captures them at deeper, more introspective moments—masterfully moving between the staged nature of the portraits and the real experiences of her subjects. The combination of van Meene’s instinctive understanding of the universality of adolescent experience and the highly intimate collaboration between photographer and model makes for powerful portraits that resonate long after viewing.
FESTIVAL
PORTRAIT(S)
From June 10th to September 4th, 2016
Portraits Untitled
Hellen van Meene
Centre Culturel Valery-Larbaud
03200 Vichy
France
https://www.ville-vichy.fr/agenda/festival-portraits-2016
http://hellenvanmeene.com
