Hellen van Meene

In her second solo exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ Hellen van Meene will show new work made in the south of the USA (2007) and around St Petersburg, Russia (2008). The new works include photos made with a panoramic camera, and still lifes.

Van Meene is known for her composed portraits of adolescent girls and androgynous boys. Profoundly still, her subjects are caught in moments of deep contemplation, grounded and absorbed. Though the promise of youth shines through, van Meene’s pictures often harbour elements of disquiet - clothes are ill-fitting; girls appear exhausted with dark rings under their eyes; hair is tangled in trees.

Her travels around the American southern states show neglected and weatherworn dwellings, a break from van Meene’s normally intimate interiors. The girls in this series appear sassy and bold, perhaps at first less willing to show vulnerability than van Meene’s previous models. The young boys convey a more dreamy and complacent manner. In one such portrait, three young boys stand outside a run-down house, barefoot and shirtless, looking eager to resume their play. Van Meene returns to domestic settings in her St Petersburg work, which includes romantic still lives and a more mature portraiture.

Hellen van Meene was born in Alkmaar, The Netherlands, in 1972, and studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, Holland. Recent solo shows include Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany, 2007; C/O Berlin, The Cultural Forum of Photography, Berlin, Germany, 2007; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, Holland, 2006; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2006; and a touring show which was first exhibited at Pump House Gallery, London, and travelled across the United Kingdom, also in 2006. She has taken part in various group shows, including Family Pictures, Guggenheim, New York, 2007, and Portaal naar de hemel – Hedendaagse portret foto’s in oude lijsten, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2006. The most recent monograph of the artist’s work, Hellen Van Meene: Travel Portraits, by Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH, was published in 2006. She lives and works in The Netherlands.

Hellen van Meene