Vlog, Videoblog: Hellen van Meene: Global photographer

September 21st, 2007

Interview with Hellen van Meene (Quicktime-Video)

Deutsche Version (Interview Sender in deutscher Sprache) 

Hellen van Meene, a global photographer.

Not everyone finds access to poetry. Sensual beauty appears useless to some of us. In times of controllers man is reduced to his function.

As man is a creature that reaches beyond his plain function in the society, he has – among other things – created art. Art is one of the highest achievements of mankind and describes ever again the core which represents humanity.

Photo by Hellen van Meene.

In the images of the dutch photographer Hellen van Meene fragility, beauty and as well lonelyness are depicted in simple quiet colours. Except for small arrangements Hellen relies on the power of expression. There are young, mostly female persons, in back yards, in front of bushes, leaning on walls. One does not know where they come from nor what they do or where they go to.
They seem to be disconnected from earthy affairs and the encounter of photographer and model appears random. As if Helen van Meene were a shell seeker, who accidentally came across them. However one sympathizes with those beings and almost asumes to be able to touch or to talk to them. But it is only an image of encounter, which Hellen van Meene was searching and finding at different places in this world. This is her extraordinary talent for she works across countries and languages.

A fact that seems not to be an obstacle to her as she approaches her models in her own global tongue. Her poetic pictures that do not feature an August Sander like structure are far away from common definition. There is no theory with which they could be described, but poetry. Hellen van Meene´s photographs are a poem.

Christian E. Klinger

Translation: Katja Kirsche

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