Stephan Vanfleteren: Atelier

In recent years, Stephan Vanfleteren (b. 1969) has been engaged in intense photographical activity in the daylight studio at his home. This work is brought together in Atelier. Grey theatre curtains are present throughout as a recurring background. In both his natural light and his artificial light photography, Vanfleteren is on a quest for beauty and meaning. His extensive palette of subjects includes both things and people - well-known figures and anonymous individuals alike. He shows us the face of an old fisherman and inspects both Nick Cave's hand and a bottle washed up on the beach. He adores his growing children and inspired artists. He studies the stiffened corpse of a kingfisher and the body of a flexible dancer, or follows the sunlight as it moves slowly across his theatre curtain.
His work alludes to classical painting, with its bewitching 'old' light, oblique light and chiaroscuro. If a subject cannot be photographed in Vanfleteren's home, he raises the grey theatre curtains and builds his own studio on location.