Henryk Hetflaisz’s latest collection of photographs elevates the viewer into the realm of mystic form and enduring light. The experience becomes almost transcendental. Hetflaisz first paints the human nude before taking photographs of him/her moving in a darkened studio with an ultra-slow shutter speed. The result is a pure transference of photon energy and colour, unadulterated by post production or computer trickery. Each image is shrouded in lyrical rhapsody and the language of spells. The dancing nude becomes an illumined brush captured in time.
Each picture challenges the viewer to make up his or her own story about what they are seeing
Despite Hetflaisz’s seemingly ephemeral glimpses of the dancer, he achieves a solidity in his work which gestures towards sculpture. Not unlike Degas, Hetflaisz successfully utilises photography to capture the relationship of form moving through space. His work is not merely aesthetic but also draws one to the real possibility of universal connectivity and the transference of soul through creativity.
“Each picture challenges the viewer to make up his or her own story about what they are seeing and, like origin myths, where it came from. This often leaves the viewer confounded, not from confusion, but in reverence of the beauty of the work and his mastery of the photographic process.”
Henryk Hetflaisz (b. 1978) is a Polish-born photographic artist, working in London. He has had one-man shows in London’s Surface Gallery and at Gallery 27 on Cork Street. He has worked with the Jeu de Paume and the Fitzwilliam Museum. Hetflaisz has a deep sense of nature, the magic of the earth and man’s place in it. Each picture is indefinable, timeless, impossible to categorise, symbolic. Each picture challenges the viewer to make up his or her own story about what they are seeing and, like origin myths, where it came from. His work leaves the viewer in reverence of the beauty of the work and his mastery of the photographic process.” – Gail Buckland, Author, Curator, former President of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.
Words: Lisa Azarmi – Photo courtesy of the artist
For further information www.henrykh.com
Henryk Hetflaisz Moving Light The Loft – The Ivy London WC2.