Photographer Marie Cécile Thijs Makes Portraits of Flemish Felines and They’re Purrrfect | artnet News
Thijs’s work is about much more than art historical homages. In fact, for her, that element is a rather small one; instead, the invocation of Old Master art is a way of achieving a sense of surreality. It’s about the disconnect between how we expect a contemporary portrait to look and the way her portraits do actually look; between photographic styles and painting styles; between old and new.
“My work is like a time machine,” says Thijs. “I like to play with structures from the past and bring them into the present.”
Indeed, when you look past the aesthetic decisions, the logic of Thijs’s pictures has more in common with the matter-of-fact surrealism of René Magritte than with Vermeer or Rembrandt. Much of that has to do with the treatment of her subjects, which often look like they’re from another time or place. That’s particularly true when she photographs animals, especially cats—something she’s done since she began the “White Collar” series in 2009.
Incongruous though her work may be, it’s rooted in the same thing that most successful portraits are, regardless of their medium.
“In the end,” she says, “to make a nice image, the most important thing is that it connects with the viewer. I want to make something that’s interesting on an emotional level.”
Photographer Marie Cécile Thijs Makes Portraits of Flemish Felines and They’re Purrrfect | artnet News
Thijs’s work is about much more than art historical homages. In fact, for her, that element is a rather small one; instead, the invocation of Old Master art is a way of achieving a sense of surreality. It’s about the disconnect between how we expect a contemporary portrait to look and the way her portraits do actually look; between photographic styles and painting styles; between old and new.
“My work is like a time machine,” says Thijs. “I like to play with structures from the past and bring them into the present.”
Indeed, when you look past the aesthetic decisions, the logic of Thijs’s pictures has more in common with the matter-of-fact surrealism of René Magritte than with Vermeer or Rembrandt. Much of that has to do with the treatment of her subjects, which often look like they’re from another time or place. That’s particularly true when she photographs animals, especially cats—something she’s done since she began the “White Collar” series in 2009.
Incongruous though her work may be, it’s rooted in the same thing that most successful portraits are, regardless of their medium.
“In the end,” she says, “to make a nice image, the most important thing is that it connects with the viewer. I want to make something that’s interesting on an emotional level.”