A dark wood. A dead heart. A face hidden behind a latex canvas gasping for breath in vain. In her photographic material Katlijn Blanchaert is looking up the edges of the volcano.
She is exploring both the shady side and the subconscious powers which determine our personality and behaviour.
In her previous work she took ‘the other’ as a starting point in a discrete and respectful way. Today she starts from her own demons which sometimes threaten to swallow her. However, Blanchaert doesn’t easily throw in the towel. Her sensitive pictures aim at giving shape to her wounded soul which is marked by a loss. Deep down the photographer remains a ‘believer’, hopeful and confident. As the late French singer-songwriter Alain Bashung sings in L’imprudence: “Laisse venir” and “À l’avenir”.
The title LIMEN refers to liminality. It is the middle phase of a ritual, which deals with someone’s transition from former to future identities. Katlijn Blanchaert feels affinity with this ‘in-between’ stadium, as if she is at a loss in a no man’s land, looking for some anchor. Thus LIMEN is an attempt at getting a grip on this hybrid state of mind.The pictures are suggestive and coarse-grained. A rough layer on the photos is striking. At times it is as if we are looking at stills of a non-existent thriller from the early years of cinema.Does Katlijn Blanchaert reflect her inner suffering in her pictures? Or maybe she does photograph herself even more in her work. Undoubtedly she has found an expression for her unspeakable self. (Text: Sofie Crabbé)
About Katlijn Blanchaert
Katlijn Blanchaert was born in Eeklo, Belgium in 1978. She studied photography at the Academy of Visual Art in Ghent (2010 – 2015) and participated in workshops with Michael Ackerman and Antoine D’Agata. She has had her work exhibited in solo and group shows in Belgium (Ghent, Brugge), Georgia (Tbilisi), and France (Paris). Her work was also published in online and printed magazines such as Die Angst, Halogénure, Semi Zine, Dreck and Analog Magazine. She wanders through life with an overwhelming inner turmoil and unstoppable curiosity, which takes a central place in the explorations of nature’s dark side and personal obsessions. Delving down into the subconscious, beyond the daily context, with an affinity for dark settings and odd atmospheres she finds herself meeting people she would otherwise never meet. [Official Website]
