Luc Praet
About Luc Praet
Luc Praet is a Belgian photographer based in Brussels. He is represented by Hangar Gallery. He began photography at the age of 16 as an assistant. In 1988, he moved to Brussels and opened his own studio specialising in fashion photography.
He has worked with many well-known and prestigious brands, including Cacharel, Payot, Garnier and L'Oréal, and has published his work in a number of magazines around the world. In 2002, he directed the global campaign for Lancôme's Miracle fragrance with actress Uma Thurman in Los Angeles, for the Air Paris agency. It wasn't until 2010 that he fully devoted himself to artistic photography.
Luc Praet’s Photographic Approach
Luc Praet's photographic work is at once archaeological and almost immaterial, touching on the immanence of art. Here, perhaps only the medium of paper and the material still on the surface remind us of photography, but the transformation of the images, and sometimes even their disappearance, offer us a unique plasticity that is both overwhelming and supernatural. When you look at Luc Praet's photographs, the subject is barely perceptible. It recedes into the background, replaced by the effects of matter. Each print is unique, different because it is the result of manipulation in the darkroom. A series of accidents and intuitions that cannot be reproduced. Having worked in fashion for a long time, he wanted to take up other artistic challenges by moving towards something that cannot be reproduced. After years of working with camera crews of up to twenty people, he wanted to be alone with his subject.
Luc Praet's work also questions the power of memory, and he seeks to capture this memory in his photographs. It's a humble and curious approach, because memory is unstable. Like us, it is alive, it ages and it changes over time. The images it has stored crumble and recompose themselves all the time as a function of what we experience and what we feel. The magic of his work comes from what you can decipher, or even guess from the images. You never know where you are. Somewhere between painting and photography.
His work ALTERED / The players (2023-2024) was part of the exhibition Unique - Beyond Photography, held at Hangar in 2024. This project questions the position of the artist in relation to their peers, as well as the conscious or unconscious influence, whether acknowledged or not, of older works on their own creation. His project titled ALTERED consists of an endless series of photographs captured in museums around the world, primarily working from works dating from the Renaissance to the early 20th century.
Luc Praet’s Exhibitions and published works
His artistic work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions across Belgium, including at Eleven Steens in 2020 and again in 2023, Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach in 2022 and Espace Constantin Chariot in 2024.
Luc Praet's artistic work was brilliantly highlighted in the catalogue for the exhibition Unique - Beyond Photography, held at Hangar in 2024. His work for prestigious fashion brands has been widely distributed around the world, appearing in numerous international magazines.