ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This portraits is from my Graduate Project in Art Photography “IN BETWEEN”.
This series combines intriguing and honest portraits of contemporary youngsters with metaphorical and quasi “palpable” landscapes that depict their inner selves. The photos breathe an intense atmosphere and are a mixture of strength and vulnerability.

The reason for this project was a quote from the well-known European novel “The diary of Anne Frank”. In 1944 the then 14 year old Anne wrote in her dairy: “For in its innermost depths, youth is lonelier than old age”. This quote struck a chord with me as it brought back memories of my own teenage experience.

I wanted to visually research whether this quote still holds true 70 years later. The current ‘Generation Z’ is the most connected generation in history. Supported by countless virtual friends and followers they are, by definition, thought to never feel lonely or misunderstood. But is that really the case? Or are the teenage years today – despite all the connections – even harder and lonelier than ever?

In this quirky but poetic photo series about the turbulent puberty period, I pull the contemporary youngsters out of their digitised world and look further than their ever upbeat image they display on social media. My starting point is that teenage years are always an emotionally bittersweet period, regardless of the times in which you grow up. You are both child and adult sharing the same body, wrestling with your identity and your place in the world. Although the guiding principle is rather contemporary and personal, the portraits exude something timeless and universal.

AUTHOR
EDUCATION:
- Academy of Fine Arts, Lier, Belgium, 2012-2017
- Masterclass led by John Lambrichts, the Netherlands, 2015-2016
- Various workshops in Belgium and abroad (with Michael Ackerman, Mirjam Appelhof, Joël,
Tjintjelaar, Michael Schnabl and many others)

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