Traducción al inglés al final del post, marcada con [*] en cada párrafo /
English translation below marked with [*] in each paragraph
________________________________________________________________
Hellen van Meene
Hellen van Meene es una fotógrafa holandesa nacida en 1972 en Alkmaar.
Estudió en el Colegio de Arte en Edinburgo, Escocia, y fotografía en la Academia Gerrit Rietveld en Ámsterdam.
En sus fotografías, en formato casi siempre cuadrado, con luz natural, suele presentar chicas adolescentes, a veces con perros, que miran a la cámara con una rara intensidad. Otras veces sus miradas sugieren un ensimismamiento profundo, una actitud de estar sumidas en los meandros mentales de su propia adolescencia. [1]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
Las fotografías de Hellen van Meene de jovenes mujeres y chicas son un delicado equilibrio entre la serenidad y la vulnerabilidad, entre la identidad individual y la caracterización arquetípica, entre la niñez y la adultez. Lo bello e intrigante en las fotografías de van Meene radica en la potencia de su incertidumbre. No está claro si estamos mirando algo cuidadosamente escenificado, o poses torpemente espontáneas, si esas chicas se han vestido para la ocasión, o han sido pilladas en actitudes inconscientes. Es tentadoramente ambiguo, ya sea que se trate de momentos que podrían ocurrir con o sin la presencia de van Meene, su cámara y nuestra apreciación, o si se trata de escenas completamente dirigidas que simplemente tienen el aspecto de algo íntimo y efímero. [2]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
«Las fotografías no se supone que sean retratos; por eso no tienen títulos. No es mi intención presentar una expresión de su personalidad o un estado mental. Tampoco quiero bocetar una imagen sociológica de la juventud contemporánea o las chicas en la pubertad. Busco un cierto estado de ánimo en las imágenes para que las chicas figuren casi como actrices. De hecho, trato a mis modelos como objetos que puedes dirigir y guiar. Son simplemente material para mí.
Me preocupan principalmente cosas como la luz cayendo sobre una piel blanca, los moretones en un brazo, las manos que se desfiguran en el agua, y la piel de gallina con un tiempo gélido. Sólo entonces ves las texturas de la piel tan hermosas. Es excitante ver lo que ocurre cuando pones una pierna sobre una barra horizontal o cuando cuelgas el pelo de una persona en un arbusto. Más allá de esto, pongo mucha atención en la posición correcta, la puesta en escena, hacer que las ropas y los colores coincidan con la mirada y postura del modelo. Lo preparo todo, hasta el menor detalle, como el pulido de las uñas de sus dedos.
No es que trabaje a partir de una idea claramente definida, a la que me adhiero exactamente. Por supuesto tengo algo en mente, pero la ejecución puede ir por otro camino. A menudo es algo que espero ver, lo que traduzco en mi propia imagen, y lo que transformo en mi propio mundo. Mientras fotografío la casualidad juega un importante papel, porque ocurren toda clase de cosas que no pueden ser previstas. Las cosas llegan, y no siempre permiten que se las dirija.» [3]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
«Siempre es muy difícil explicar a una modelo lo que estoy viendo, y necesito la libertad y el espacio para dirigir a mi manera. No es que no quiera aprender de ellas, porque si hacen algo a menudo me alegro, pero yo veo lo que quiero fotografiar. La mayoría de las modelos que fotografío no suelen hacer de modelos. Les hago sentir que sé lo que estoy haciendo, y luego dejo que respondan a su manera. Cuando funciona, se ven lo bastante relajadas como para aportar algo a la fotografía.» [4]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
Invitada a fotografiar en Japón en el 2000, descubrió que aunque no podía comunicarse directamente con sus sujetos, sus instintos respecto a la universalidad de la experiencia adolescente y su abordaje visual y estilístico eran traducibles. En un formato cuadrado, con imágenes de longitud focal media de chicas sin nombre, van Meene busca componer «fotografías de situaciones y actitudes adolescentes, que representan el tipo de "normalidad" que usualmente no compartimos con otros, sino que guardamos para nosotros mismos.» [5]
Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
«Para los jovenes todo está abierto, y creo que la juventud inspira. ¿Por qué queremos permancer jóvenes? De algún modo, no queremos aceptar la vejez. Nos gusta volvernos más listos porque sabemos mucho más, pero la juventud es inspiradora, es salud, fortaleza, sueños más abiertos. Lo joven atrae. Todos queremos capturar eso, quisieramos retenerlo, pero no podemos, porque sabemos más. A medida que te haces más viejo, sabes que ya no lo tendrás nunca más.» [6]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
«Me gusta intentar hacer la foto de una chica, y ver si puedo encontrar su magia. Es muy fácil conseguir ese... "ohhh, pobre niñita...", pero yo quiero una fotografía que también conecte con gente que no tiene niños, o que ni siquiera le gustan, pero encuentran algo en mis fotos. Ese es el momento que busco. (...)
A veces te sientes como un mago, porque ves algo que otros no ven.» [7]
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
© Hellen van Meene
«No me interesan las fotos bonitas de perros. Quiero capturar el carácter del perro, ese sentimiento humano que los perros tienen, ya que es por eso que la gente está tan unida a los perros, por lo que a veces tratan a sus perros como su... hermano, hermana, madre, padre, mejor amigo. Hay algo en los ojos de los perros, la expresión que tienen, la conducta que muestran, que hacen que nos sintamos tan conectados. También los gatos, pero es diferente. Los perros pueden estar tan realmente unidos a tí.» [8]
© Hellen van Meene
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Fuentes / Sources:
[2], [4] - Entrevista de Charlotte Cotton en / Interview by Charlotte Cotton in Pop Magazine, 2004
[3] - Entrevista de / Interview by Karel Schampers, Haarlem, 15 Enenro / January 2002
[5] - Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). Columbia College, Chicago
[6], [7] - Entrevista de H. Skrikeryud para la TV noruega. Ver video abajo /
Interview by Hanne Skrikerud for Norwegian TV. See video below
[8] - Entrevista a Hellen / Interview with Hellen, WestLicht & WestLicht Photographica Auction. Youtube
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Hellen van Meene en "El Hurgador" / in this blog: [Recolección (XXXIII)], [Aniversarios Fotografía (CXCVII)]
[5] - Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). Columbia College, Chicago
[6], [7] - Entrevista de H. Skrikeryud para la TV noruega. Ver video abajo /
Interview by Hanne Skrikerud for Norwegian TV. See video below
[8] - Entrevista a Hellen / Interview with Hellen, WestLicht & WestLicht Photographica Auction. Youtube
____________________________________________________________
Hellen van Meene en "El Hurgador" / in this blog: [Recolección (XXXIII)], [Aniversarios Fotografía (CXCVII)]
Imágenes publicadas con autorización de la artista (¡Muchas gracias, Hellen!)
Images published here with artist's permission (Thanks a lot, Hellen!)
Entrevista a Hellen de H. Skrikeryud para la TV noruega (en inglés y noruego) /
Interview with Hellen by Hanne Skrikerud for Norwegian TV (English and Norwegian)
Traducción al inglés / English translation
[1]
Hellen van Meene is a Dutch photographer born in 1972 in Alkmaar.
Hellen van Meene is a Dutch photographer born in 1972 in Alkmaar.
She studied at the College of Art in Edinburgh, Scotland, and photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
In her photographs, mostly square format with natural light, usually shows teenage girls, sometimes with dogs, looking at the camera with a rare intensity. Sometimes their eyes suggest a deep reverie, an attitude of being mired in the mental meanderings of her own adolescence.
[2]
Hellen van Meene's photographs of young women and girls are delicate balancing acts between self-possession and vulnerability, of individual identity and archetypal characterisation, childhood and adulthood. The beauty and the intrigue of van Meene's photographs is held in the potency of their uncertainty, it's unclear whether we are looking at carefully staged or awkwardly struck spontaneous poses, whether these are girls dressed up for the occasion or caught in unself-conscious play. It's tantalisingly ambiguous whether these are intimate moments that would be happening with or without the presence of van Meene, her camera and our appreciation or if they are fully directed scenes that simply have the look of something intimate and fleeting.
Hellen van Meene's photographs of young women and girls are delicate balancing acts between self-possession and vulnerability, of individual identity and archetypal characterisation, childhood and adulthood. The beauty and the intrigue of van Meene's photographs is held in the potency of their uncertainty, it's unclear whether we are looking at carefully staged or awkwardly struck spontaneous poses, whether these are girls dressed up for the occasion or caught in unself-conscious play. It's tantalisingly ambiguous whether these are intimate moments that would be happening with or without the presence of van Meene, her camera and our appreciation or if they are fully directed scenes that simply have the look of something intimate and fleeting.
[3]
«The photographs are not meant to be portraits, which is why they have no titles. It is not my intention to give expression to their personality or state of mind. Nor do I want to sketch a sociological image of contemporary youth or girls at the moment of puberty. I look for a certain mood in the pictures, in which the girls almost figure as actors. As a matter of fact I treat my models as objects which you can direct and guide. They are simply material for me.
«The photographs are not meant to be portraits, which is why they have no titles. It is not my intention to give expression to their personality or state of mind. Nor do I want to sketch a sociological image of contemporary youth or girls at the moment of puberty. I look for a certain mood in the pictures, in which the girls almost figure as actors. As a matter of fact I treat my models as objects which you can direct and guide. They are simply material for me.
I am mainly concerned with things such as the lightfall on a white skin, bruises on an arm, hands which disfigure in water, and starting goose-pimples in frosty weather. Only then you see the texture of the skin so beautifully. It is exciting to see what happens when you put a leg over a horizontal bar or when you hang a person's hair in a bush. Besides this I pay a lot of attention to the right position, to the mise-en-scene, to matching clothes as well as their colour, to the gaze and posture of the model. I arrange everything, to the smallest detail, such as the nail polish on their fingers.
It is not that I work from a clearly defined idea, to which I will stick exactly. Of course I have something in mind, but the execution of it can go either way. Often it is something I happen to see, which I then translate into my own image and which I transform into my own world. While photographing, chance plays an important role, because all kind of things happen that cannot be foreseen. Things just come about and do not always let themselves be directed.»
[4]
«It's always very difficult to explain to a model what I am seeing, and I need the freedom and the space to direct in my own way. It's not that I don't want to learn from them because if they do something, I am often happy about that, but I do see what I want to photograph. Most models that I photograph are not used to being models. I give them the feeling that I know what I am doing, and then I give it over to them to respond in their way to this. When it works, they feel relaxed enough to give something to the photograph.»
«It's always very difficult to explain to a model what I am seeing, and I need the freedom and the space to direct in my own way. It's not that I don't want to learn from them because if they do something, I am often happy about that, but I do see what I want to photograph. Most models that I photograph are not used to being models. I give them the feeling that I know what I am doing, and then I give it over to them to respond in their way to this. When it works, they feel relaxed enough to give something to the photograph.»
[5]
Invited to photograph in Japan in 2000, she found that while she could not communicate directly with her subjects, her instincts regarding the universality of adolescent experience, and her visual and stylistic approach to it, were translatable. In her square-format, medium-focal-length pictures of unnamed girls, van Meene strives to compose "photographs of adolescent situations and attitudes, which represent the type of 'normality' we don't usually share with others, but keep to ourselves."
Invited to photograph in Japan in 2000, she found that while she could not communicate directly with her subjects, her instincts regarding the universality of adolescent experience, and her visual and stylistic approach to it, were translatable. In her square-format, medium-focal-length pictures of unnamed girls, van Meene strives to compose "photographs of adolescent situations and attitudes, which represent the type of 'normality' we don't usually share with others, but keep to ourselves."
[6]
«For young people everything is open and I think youth inspires. Why do we always want to stay young? We don't want to accept to be old in a way. We do like it we do get smarter because of knowing much more, but youth is inspiring, youth is about healthiness, strongness, openest dreams. Young attracts. It's just something that doesn't last so long. That's why it's still spiring, because last so short in a way.
«For young people everything is open and I think youth inspires. Why do we always want to stay young? We don't want to accept to be old in a way. We do like it we do get smarter because of knowing much more, but youth is inspiring, youth is about healthiness, strongness, openest dreams. Young attracts. It's just something that doesn't last so long. That's why it's still spiring, because last so short in a way.
We all want to capture that, we would like to hold it but we can not, because we know more. As soon as you get older you know that you can't have it anymore.»
[7]
«I would like to try to make a photo of a girl, and try to see if I can find her magic. Is very easy to have these... "ahhh poor nice girl" but I want a photo that also correspond with people that have no children or even don't like children but do have something with my photos. That´s the moment I'm looking for. (...)
«I would like to try to make a photo of a girl, and try to see if I can find her magic. Is very easy to have these... "ahhh poor nice girl" but I want a photo that also correspond with people that have no children or even don't like children but do have something with my photos. That´s the moment I'm looking for. (...)
I sometimes feel like a magician, 'cause sometimes you see something that others don't see.»
[8]
«I'm not interested in nice dog pictures. I want to capture the character of the dog, that human feeling that dogs have, because that's why people are so attached to dogs, because sometimes they treat the dog like their... brother, sister, mother, father, big friend. There is something with dogs because of the eyes, the expression they have, the behave that they show that we feel so connected. Cats too, but is different. Dogs can really be so attached to you.»
«I'm not interested in nice dog pictures. I want to capture the character of the dog, that human feeling that dogs have, because that's why people are so attached to dogs, because sometimes they treat the dog like their... brother, sister, mother, father, big friend. There is something with dogs because of the eyes, the expression they have, the behave that they show that we feel so connected. Cats too, but is different. Dogs can really be so attached to you.»
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