Plastic Bag, Paper Roll, Bubble Wrap
When Hendrik Kerstens decided to dedicate himself entirely to photography in 1995, he turned to a model very near at hand – his daughter, Paula. He captured incidents throughout her development, such as her first day with braces or getting a bad sunburn, in an effort to immortalize those memories that make up life but fade from memory rather quickly. The project became known as ‘Paula Pictures’. He not only depicted her in relation to events in her own life, but eventually began to project on her his fascination with the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century.
Aluminum Foil, Refuse Cap, Refuse Cape
Kerstens said, “One day Paula came back from horseback riding. She took off her cap and I was struck by the image of her hair held together by a hair-net. It reminded me of the portraits by the Dutch masters and I portrayed her in that fashion. After that I started to do more portraits in which I refer to the paintings of that era. The thing that fascinates me in particular is the way a seventeenth-century painting is seen as a surface which can be read as a description of everyday life as opposed to the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, which usually tell a story. Northern European painting relies much more on craftsmanship and the perfect rendition of the subject. In this, the use of light is instrumental.”
Napkin, Lampshade, Red Rabbit IV
A number of the portraits of Paula are reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer – the austerity of the photograph, the serene expression on the young girl’s face and the characteristic Dutch light all combine to create this impression. In these later photographs, Kerstens exploits our natural tendency to associate visual cues with a certain era – clothing, makeup, accessories, lighting. By using modern, often banal objects to impart these visual cues, he plays an interesting, layered game with time.
Images and quoted text via Witzenhausen Gallery
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