Hendrick Kerstens

 This practitioner was mentioned in a recent seminar that discussed symbolism in portraiture. I found the images of this artist very inspiring and unique as he creates very traditional headwear in a contemporary style consisting of everyday objects. This work is inspiring for me as it gives you a wider range of ideas to look at, when trying to think of ways to make my own Elizabethan designs more contemporary, pushing traditional boundaries. Hendrick Kerstens has been a photographer since 1995, and his early imagery had always been of his young daughter who inspired him to capture images of her childhood that would 'fade'. One day his daughter Paula, came home from a horse riding lesson and as she was removing her riding helmet, which fascinated her father with the thought of her hair being held together by a hair net. This then reminded Kerstens of traditional Dutch portraiture of masters, this led him to then start creating imagery of traditional head wear and hoods made from strange objects such as plastic bags and toilet paper.


 I find Hendrick Kersten's work refreshing and beautiful, every portrait he makes featuring a contemporary style historical head piece is always subtle and normal making wearing a plastic bag seem beautiful and not strange at all.

I found these two images from Hendrick Kerstens website which contains his most beautiful works.
(http://www.danzigergallery.com/artists/hendrik-kerstens) I choose these two images in particular as they are some of my favourites from his work, the gentle shaping and positioning of the objects on his daughters head remind me so much of old Renaissance art that has the beautiful theme of a dark contrasted background.

Michaelangelo Caravaggio
The Lute Player 1595.
This portrait is an example that reminds me of the style of Hendrick Kerstens use of  a dark background in his images.
Michaelangelo Caravaggio was a Renaissance artist who painted many beautiful works with a similar dark contrast in his background. I used his portrait as an example because I love the way the dark black background appears to be consuming the subject in the painting making it look almost creepy but also making the subject pop and stand out in the painting.

Paper Rolls
August 2008.

Inspired by Kerstens work, I created my own similar head wear as instructed in the homework given by Sharon.
In my self portrait I used a travel pillow to create a bold shape similar to Hendrick Kerstens plastic bag image and then covered this in pink material that contained gold sequins. I chose this material as I wanted to symbolise femininity and also wealth with the use of gold sequin detailing. I also included a rose into my headress which came from a perfume bottle I had and it reminded me of the Tudor Rose that Queen Elizabeth wore in some of her famous portraits.
 My created head piece reminded me a lot of traditional headwear women used to wear which Im not sure of what it would be called but it usually has long material at the ends of the head piece.