BARBARA VANDENDRIESSCHE

CAPTURING THE EMOTIONAL BODY EXPLORING VISUAL POETRY

My photos are often staged and focus on physicality, emotion, or expression. They look for physical and psychological vulnerability. I create the whole image as a photographer, stylist, and set designer. My photography is theatrical. But 'theatricality' is an elastic concept and also has many negative connotations: bombastic, exaggerated, false, or artificial. - Barbara Vandendriessche

With my pictures and sculptures, I seek for the beauty in the tragical. -- Barbara Vandendriessche

I worked for 20 years as a director and set designer at the theater. But more and more, photography, which I initially regarded as a sideline, invaded my professional path. I discovered how my experience within the theater influenced the language of my photography and experienced a sense of back to basics, of resourcing. In order to be able to clarify this more, I decided to leave the black box in 2017 and tell my story, starting from photography and sculpture. (I still work as a drama teacher at Luca drama, Luca School of arts, and as a freelance stage designer, f.i. for Milo Rau, NTGent).

My photos are staged and focus on physicality, emotion, and expression. They look for physical and psychological vulnerability. I create the whole image as a photographer, stylist, and set designer. My sculptures are a study of damage, both in the use of matter and in the expression of an emotion. The broken, the damaged, the unfinished, and the confused are represented differently through heads and bodies.