English:Dirk Braeckman (Q79018)

Braeckman started his artistic career as a photographer of portraits and self-portraits. Later, he chose subjects of abandoned spaces and deserted rooms, body parts, surfaces of desks, walls, beds, etc for his black-and-white photos. Fragments are enlarged and take up the dimension of an all-embracing still life. With vague contours, the enlarged detail aims at catching a pure and essential, universal and anonymous image. By direct attention for the detail, the miniscule is elevated to auratic dimensions of the icon. The pictures are diaphanous yet suggestive: one recognises a personal narrative behind the large, unframed, black and white, but mainly gray photos.