Still by Hendrik Kerstens and Robert Polidori
Curated by Mark Dean
Sultan Gallery is pleased to present ‘Still’ an exhibition of photographs by Hendrik Kerstens (Dutch) and Robert Polidori (Canadian) curated by Miami Beach based art dealer Mark Dean.
Exhibition dates: 6th–29th October, 2015
Opening reception: Tuesday, October 6th from 7-9pm, The Sultan Gallery, Kuwait.
Hendrik Kerstens achieves this feat by drawing on his Dutch heritage. He photographs his daughter using painterly lighting, poses and costumes that deliberately evoke the portraits of Dutch Golden Age painters like Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals. Presented so that her porcelain features emerge luminously from plain dark backdrops, Paula Kerstens locks the viewer in a timeless gaze that might have emerged from seventeenth century Holland. But a closer look at these photographs reveals historical anomalies. They are composed with contemporary props: Such objects as white plastic or pink tissue paper have been skillfully manipulated to suggest details of period costumes. And because Kerstens has been pursuing this subject for
twenty years, we also see time unfold in a literal way as the fresh-faced young girl matures into a beautiful young woman.
Robert Polidori layers history in another way. A photographer renowned for disturbingly beautiful studies of subjects like post Katrina New Orleans, the crumbling elegance of contemporary Havana or the abandoned schools, offices and homes destroyed by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, he here presents the works that set him on his path. Beginning in 1985 and continuing for the next twenty years, Polidori documented the ongoing restoration of the 17 century Palace of Versailles. His photographs from this series have the scale and architectural sweep of history paintings, and like Kerstens, he uses light and color.
For further information, please contact The Sultan Gallery. You can visit them in Sabhan, call them on 24714325, or visit their website www.sultangallery.com. Follow The Sultan Gallery on Facebook and Twitter @sultangallery.
