Hendrik Kerstens "Towel" 2009

Hendrik Kerstens "Towel" 2009. C-Print photograph. Edition of 6.

For more than 20 years, Hendrik Kerstens has taken spare, stylized photographs of his daughter, Paula. In 1995, Kerstens left his business job to dedicate himself to photography, and his early frames focused on the quiet moments he spent caring for his daughter while his wife worked. As Paula grew up, Kerstens began capturing her in compositions that reinterpreted Dutch Old Master portraits. She posed in costumes against dark backdrops for shots that reference the work of Johannes Vermeer and draw comparisons to the series of Sally Mann, who also trains her lens on family members. Kerstens has exhibited in New York, London, Paris, San Francisco, Brussels, and Amsterdam. His work belongs in the collections of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Amsterdam Museum, among others. The late fashion designer Alexander McQueen cited Kerstens’s photograph Bag (2007) as the inspiration for his 2009 fall collection.