kindheit
“Innocence is like immaculate snow, always pure but always cold.”
Jean-Napoléon Vernier
The series “Kindheit” presents portraits of children — all girls — in their familiar surroundings. Although the portrait is the central subject, the surrounding is essential to the image – as it gives clues to the subject’s identity. Though they do not smile, we see neither sadness nor nostalgia expressed, as time has not yet marked its passage on those faces.
In one instant, photography captures the immensity of a life in the making. As in a child portrait of Velasquez, a face to face with the artist can be a moment of intimacy, where the expressions of these bare faces create, with the background, an image that is as much a photograph as a painting.