Hendrik Kerstens: Model and Muse

Inspiration comes from many sources. For the artist Hendrik Kerstens, it is his daughter, Paula, who inspires his photographic explorations. For […]

Inspiration comes from many sources. For the artist Hendrik Kerstens, it is his daughter, Paula, who inspires his photographic explorations. For more than two decades, self-taught photographer Kerstens’ primary subject has been his daughter. From the beginning his images were not the traditional snapshots of a child growing up, rather his formalised portraits of her had and continue to have far more in common with traditions in painting — light, gaze, gesture and scale. These are the foundation upon which Kerstens creates his on-going body of work. By directing the viewer’s gaze to images that closely reference painting and yet are the product of modern technology, the artist has created work that is sublime, provocative, and endlessly fascinating.