image by
Hellen van Meene
Hellen van Meene is dreaming. She is dreaming about how it could be to be young, about being vulnerable without being hurt already, she is dreaming about the beauty of youth that is not here to stay, and she is translating her dreams into dreamlike photographs. Her look is a very grownup look back into childhood.
After Donigan Cummings photographs that I hardly can bear, I needed this kind of break. Maybe we all need images like Hellen van Meene, representing a paradise lost, a paradise that may have existed but probably never has.
After my last years of working with people lost in poverty, alcoholism, craze and loneliness, now I have ended up in a senior home amassing all of the above in one building. I have realized now, that hell is on earth. So we need to dream.
Beauty is a kind of remedy. We need beauty and dreams not to escape reality but to cope with it.
Hellen van Meene´s adolescent kids are beautiful, because Helen van Meene sees the beauty in them.
Because of the smoothness of her images one could overlook their depth.
I see the fragility of life.. I see its vulnerability. I see its value.
I like what I imagine Hellen van Meene is telling me.
I wish the love Hellen van Meene is expressing in her images would be an everyday quality when dealing with kids. And with grown ups.
The output of artists is always artificial. It has to be by its nature. Only photography can create the illusion of natural truth.
Hellen van Meene´s images are breathing control. Her reality is clearly visible a staged one. Sometimes she is almost touching fashion photography. But there is more than smoothness to her images.
image by
Hellen van Meene
