Charlotte Hess
Paris, France
Since graduating from The Ecole Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière, in Paris, I have focused my work on using photography as an integral part of the creative process.
As I was working in different directions, film industry, decoration..., I noted that the true family portrait has disappeared, despite its honorable function of preserving history and memory, in addition to decoration...
My project arose from a desire to revive the traditional image that we see in these 17th and 18th century portraits. Although I have always admired the Golden Age of Dutch painting, I believe a very contemporary energy inspired this project. I wanted to re-create the context of these portrait sessions using a camera in a photo studio.
My portraits are printed on canvas in a format close to those that can be found in traditional painting. The framing is inspired by the traditional Dutch frames. The result looks more like a painting than a photograph.
What is interesting to me is to see how the strong visual codes from a previous era, the very codes that have escaped us and have become anachronistic, can tell a new story…
