Thanks to this major exhibition by the renowned Belgian photographer at Hangar, we find beautiful classic photography. Atelier – Stephan Vanfleteren reveals the talent of a master of light and chiaroscuro.

Stephan Vanfleteren embodies all the works brought together in this Atelier exhibition: without embellishment, falsely casual, dark in appearance but with a silent radiance... The Atelier is him. It’s his inspiration, his look, his talent, his emotion, that’s what he gives. He gives us today at the Hangar the opportunity to get to know him. He lifts the veil. When you enter its lair, you have to lift a heavy veil. Like a thick red velvet theater curtain. Except it’s gray. And in a natural material. We enter the stage; his workshop has the size and shape of a theater stage; the light of the sun falls on its model like show lighting: backlit, laterally, from a low angle... The cry of the seagulls – the North Sea is not far away – reinforces the dramaturgical touch of the The place, which was in turn a dying house, a bank, a sports hall.

Still-life, portraits, and nudes photography

Stephan Vanfleteren wanted to compile all of his work carried out in the intimacy of this workshop in a book: ATELIER was born in November 2023, 1.6kg of paper which brings together 12 years of creation... It is a body of work including the singularity, when we have this opportunity to look at them all together, bears the characteristics of its aesthetics: obsession with light, search for the “magic moment”, depth of gray levels, theme of life and death ... From the cheerleaders of the first shoot, to the dead animals of the last shots, ATELIER sweeps across a slice of an artist’s life, made up of inspiring encounters or solitary work...

The power of light in photography

For the scenography, we let ourselves be guided by the narration of the book. Which subtly sweeps through subjects which are so many states of
life: child, adult, living, dead, animals, plants... We move from one to the other, at a rhythm given to us by Stephan’s writing Vanfleteren. He is the director, like in his workshop. With sobriety, he takes us into his world, the workings of which he perfectly masters. Indeed, Stephan Vanfleteren is today a photographer at the pinnacle of his art. But, more than the soul of the artist’s studio, today we perceive at the Hangar, the interiority of the man. The rays of light, omnipresent, transcend the whole.

Are we in a workshop or already in another world?