We’ve seen and interviewed lots of photographers who channel paintings as inspiration. Photographer Hellen van Meene has channeled this idea for many years. Instead of meditating on the ideas of Baroque and impressionist paintings, she finds faith in the ideas of Dutch painters. Like photographers Robert Claus, Neal Auch, and Dorota Gorecka, Hellen finds beauty in the light around her. In a new gallery exhibit at Yancey Richardson, some of her latest photographs adhering to this style will be on display. The images explore the formative years of young women and turn them into a beautiful time that so many of us look back on with fondness.
All images by Hellen van Meene. Used with permision on behalf of Yancey Richardson. You can see it from February 22nd to March 30th.
There’s a lot of omnipotence in the images Hellen van Meene makes. She blends her growing subjects with nature, soft colors, ethereal lighting, and things often revered in nature. I think we can all agree that butterflies bring a smile to the faces of many people. We see butterflies along with several other animals take center stage in Hellen’s The Dissolve. If all these young men are just going off to college, we might be able to say that these are some incredible senior portraits. But that would also be an injustice due to the bigger commercialization of senior portraiture. Instead, these pieces are true art.
Lots of museums and galleries often center on fashion-style portraits and we don’t see enough fine art portraits done in this style printed and in-person. But Hellen’s work is rather exceptional — and it could likely open up the floodgates for more.
Selling prints is often a complicated game. The safe ones end up being purchased by hotels and financial institutions. Others sometimes end up being investment pieces. Hellen’s work could surely be in the latter position but is also very likely to end up on the walls of someone’s living. These images are incredibly artistic and because they are so much like paintings, someone less initiated in the art of photography might think of it more as the traditionally defined higher arts such as painting, sculpture, etc.
Indeed, photographs like this can remind people that photography is art and not just something done with your phone and forgotten about after posting to social media. This kind of work deserves to be in museums — and Hellen’s have appeared in various museums around the world.
Hellen van Meene’s work will be available on display at Yancey Richardson Gallery in NYC starting February 22nd and can be visited until Match 30th. We encourage every budding portrait photographer to explore the work there if they can. Lots of photographers take inspiration from portrait paintings; but they also do a lot in Photoshop. Photographers should study the images and try to think about how the images can be made in-camera with less post-production as a way to combat the inevitable problems that AI might cause.
In these images, Hellen is channeling various struggles. The heroes in her photographs are all going through some very big changes in life. That tension and transformation is evident in the images. But in these images, we also see the beautiful creative struggle that comes when photographers truly care about making art instead of content to please an algorithm.