HELLEN VAN MEENE: PORTRAITS

For the past seven years, Hellen van Meene has been producing intimateportraits of adolescents. Though the introspective gaze of her modelssuggest that these are spontaneous, private moments in the lives of hersubjects, the carefully considered natural light, lush textures, andstriking compositions betray van Meene's hand in choreographing each imagedown to the finest detail. Throughout, the picturesque qualities areundercut by a disquieting tension: the models' clothes are ill-fitting orinside-out; one girl is asked to lie in a cold bath, fully clothed; anothermodels a fresh bruise. This intimate collaboration between the photographerand her models simultaneously exposes the uncertain nature of adolescentidentities and the complicated act of capturing them on film.