Hendrik Kerstens Biography

Since 1995, Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens has been photographing his daughter, Paula. His photographs have been collected by museums around the world and have inspired taste-makers as diverse as Elton John and Alexander McQueen. (McQueen, in fact based his Fall 2009 collection on Kerstens’ image of Paula with a plastic bag as a head-dress, using the image as his invitation for the show.)

Hendrik Kerstens uses his daughter as his model, immortalizing her, picturing her in relation to events in her own life as well as projecting onto her his fascination with the Dutch Master painters of the seventeenth century. Conceptually, Kerstens’ photographs play with the dialog between the mediums of painting and photography and time. On a more emotional level, they address everyday reality while expressing his love for his child, and the knowledge and development of his craft.