Hellen Van Meene: Portraits.

Photographs by Hellen Van Meene. Text by Kate Buh.

Aperture, New York, 2004. 96 pp., 55 four color illustrations, 8¼x8¾".

For the past seven years, Hellen van Meene has been producing intimate portraits of adolescents. Though the introspective gaze of her models suggest that these are spontaneous, private moments in the lives of her subjects, the carefully considered natural light, lush textures, and striking compositions betray van Meene's hand in choreographing each image down to the finest detail. Throughout, the picturesque qualities are undercut by a disquieting tension: the models' clothes are ill-fitting or inside-out; one girl is asked to lie in a cold bath, fully clothed; another models a fresh bruise. This intimate collaboration between the photographer and her models simultaneously exposes the uncertain nature of adolescent identities and the complicated act of capturing them on film.
Natural light, lush textures, and carefully considered compositions provide the foundation for Van Meene's intimate portraits of young girls who act in her staged photographs. Van Meene's subjects, mostly girls, are beautifully corpulent; their changing bodies and pubescent complexions—with blemishes and bruises—provide a visceral drama in themselves. And Van Meene's delightfully fetishistic eye for clothing—often perfectly ill fitting on the model—adds a subtle tension to the scene. She often portrays her subjects entwined and encumbered with the surrounding elements: a young girl lies still between the couch cushions; another's hair is weaved through a fence and another appears with her tracksuit wound tightly around her chest and a tree behind her. All maintain a similar introspective gaze as if they are equally entwined in their own private lives. Throughout, Van Meene masterfully creates a resounding dissonance between the staged nature of the portraits and the realism with which her subjects are depicted.

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