Lady Gaga 150x100cm unique Lambda Print 2011

MTV RE:DEFINE  PIETER HENKET

Cunning, with brilliance and style, Pieter Henket (b. 1979) may well be one of today’s hottest celebrity and fashionart photographers. His images, an encounter between his eyes and the eyes of his characters, form a (celebrity-worshipping) narrative, comprehensible and dead on hip.

An autodidact, Henket, today merely 31 years old, already has worked with stars like Angelica Houston, Mary-Kate Olsen, Sir Ben Kingsley, Rapper Nelly, William Hurt and pop phenomenon Lady Gaga for who Henket captured the image of her debut album “The Fame.” This iconic image was recently included in the American Woman exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and shown subsequently at Noorderlicht in the Netherlands.

Mixing fashion with pop and pop with art, for Henket, assignments are floating in from the editors of The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire (USA edition) and others.

Fascinated with capturing the image as if it were a still, with all its cinematographic characteristics and thus hard to copy, Henket evokes electric vibes. These images are on the rocky edge but remain mysteriously narrative. In recent years Henket has focused himself to portrait photography. These images seem to sum up the New Yorker culture of this decade. With his scenic stripped to a void and daring lightning design, Henket manages to make the faces in the images look casual and accidental, yet knows to represent the essence of the face and to get – with wit – under the skin of celebrity culture. Illuminating and frightening close, style maintained. Henket works and lives in New York City since 1998.