Hendrik Kerstens - Paula - 2010

Hendrik Kerstens – Paula
Publisher: Thieme Art / Witzenhauser Gallery 2010
Hardcover, 112 pages, Dutch/English
Format: 30.5×24.5cm
In excellent condition

This book was the first overview of Kerstens’ photographs.
Since 1995, Hendrik Kerstens has been photographing his daughter Paula, creating touching portraits in the spirit of Vermeer. Kerstens, born in 1956 in The Hague, is a self-taught photographer whose work has been shown in more than 40 exhibitions in Europe and the United States.
His work is included in major museum collections, regularly appears in the New York Times Magazine, and has inspired tastemakers as diverse as Elton John and Alexander McQueen. (McQueen used Kerstens’ now-iconic portrait Bag as the invitation for his 2009 autumn collection.)

Here Kerstens lovingly portrays Paula as a self-assured young woman (with a sense of humor), while at the same time projecting his fascination with the Dutch Golden Age painters of the 17th century onto her.

The photo book lay on the table, and a visitor who glanced at it briefly exclaimed, “Hey, Vermeer!” When I told him to take a closer look, he burst into laughter, for only then did he notice that the young woman wasn’t wearing a 17th-century cap, but a white plastic bag.

Yet the mistake was very understandable, because Hendrik Kerstens’ photographs do indeed evoke Vermeer’s paintings or the Flemish Primitives due to the lighting and the model’s gaze. Kerstens photographed his daughter Paula for years, and those photographs are now collected together in a book.

A remarkable book, because Kerstens manages to render his daughter extraordinarily compelling on screen, with very little distracting background, using natural light and Paula’s strong presence.

Paula is not a standard beauty, but especially her eyes captivate the viewer instantly, so at first you barely notice the plastic bag—your attention is drawn to Paula’s face, which, with its piercing gaze, is always very prominently present.

As a result, you still feel you are gazing at a classical beauty in every photograph, who can even give a royal aura to a blue towel on her head or a construction made from toilet paper and rolls. Paula doesn’t need a pearl earring to command attention.

Paula as a child, Paula sunburned, with a blackened face, with a veil, with braces, with a fur hat, but always intriguing. A fascinating timeless series of photographs with a classic appearance and at the same time photos from here and now. remarkable.